NEAR PORT ST. GEOBGE. 525 



' 30. Where great talents are combined with the 

 most perfect instruments and assiduous practice^ the 

 cause can only be ascribed to that important correction 

 on which we are still so very uncertain : and on this I 

 shall venture an opinion, not altogether unsupported by 

 experiments *; which is, that the declination of the sun 

 being deduced from observations taken at noon, and 

 that of the stars at night time, the effects of refraction 

 at these different periods may possibly vary materially, 

 and what is allowed for zenith distances of the stars, be 

 too much for zenith distances of the sun ; a surmise 

 which explains at once why the sun, in the present in- 

 stance, gives a lower latitude than the stars. This 

 strongly suggests the expediency of further experiments 

 for ascertaining a point, which, if established, would be 

 highly conductive to important discoveries, in an inte- 

 resting but imperfectly known branch of natural philo- 

 sophy. 



JOHN WARREN. 



Observatory, w^jf Fort St. > 

 George, I ft of March, 1808. V 



* See Asiatic Researches Volume IX. Article 1st, Page 13, the 

 experiments on terrestrial refraction, where the refraction at ni^ht 

 was something more than double what it was in the day-time, 

 ©wing (it is supposed) to the increased moisture of the atmosphere! 



