318 Life, Researches, and Discoveries of F. W. Bessel 



whole system of French triangles between Montjouy and For- 

 mentera. There is, perhaps, hardly one of his numerous and la- 

 borious works calculated to give a better idea of the extreme 

 scrupulousness of all his proceedings, and his contempt of labor 

 where the object is to elicit truth in its most absolute form from 

 a mass of observations of undoubted excellence, than this last 

 computation. A mistake, as is well known, had been committed 

 in one part of the computation of the French triangles, by which 

 the total distance between the parallels of these two points had 

 been rendered erroneous to the extent of nearly seventy toises. 

 The mistake, however, had been rectified by the independent 

 calculations of four eminent French geodesists, and their conclu- 

 sions agreed within three or four toises of each other. This, 

 however, did not satisfy Bessel, and he actually recalculated the 

 whole of the work by his own method, producing a result agree- 

 ing with the mean of the four determinations alluded to within 

 a fraction of a toise. 



We are still very far from having exhausted the long catalogue 

 of Bessel's astronomical labors. His memoir on the precession of 

 the equinoxes, honored with a prize by the Berlin Academy, and 

 his researches on the planetary perturbations, might well demand 

 some especial notice, did not our necessary limits forbid it, and 

 oblige us also to pass unmentioned, otherwise than generally, the 

 astonishing host of contributions with which, from time to time, 

 he enriched the periodical literature of astronomy. The greater 

 proportion of these are contained in the Astronomische Nach- 

 rtchten— so great a number indeed, and many of them of such 

 extent, that perhaps it is not exaggerating to say that at least a 

 nfth part of that collection, (now "consisting of twenty-four vol- 

 umes,) has emanated from his pen. The Zeitschrift f«r Astron- 

 omte, the Kdnigsberger Archiv fur Naturwissenschaften, the 

 Monathliche Corresponded, and the Supplements to the Berhn 

 Ephemeris, contain also many and valuable communications from 

 him.* And when it is recollected that many of these papers are 

 essays of great length and deep interest, abounding in profound 

 research and new conceptions on almost every subject with wh'cn 

 astronomers are conversant, we shall see cause to admire no less 

 the indefatigable industry of the man than the extent and versa- 

 tility of those powers which produced such a profusion of val- 

 uable matter. Some of these essays, retouched and enlarged. 



part 



Astronomical Researches, two volumes of which have appea. 



was 



were arrested by illness. 



jcaiions by 



• In Poggendorff's AnnaUn der Physik, occur occasional communications j 

 Vessel : among others, a long and interesting one in vol. lxxxii, (vi ; N. &•>) 0D 



,j: u . -— »6 ""i^rs, a lungana interesting 

 adjustment of thermometers. 



