142 



Transactions. The publication was ordered accordingly. The 

 following abstract of the paper was contained in the report of 

 the committee. 



The paper contains the reductions of all the observations of the 

 Annular Eclipse of the Sun, September 18th, 1838, yet reported to 

 the Society : together with those of Mr. Hallowell at Alexandria, D.C. ; 

 of Messrs. Olmsted, Mason and Smith, at New Haven; and of Mr. 

 J. Blickensderfer, jr. of Dover, Tuscarawas county, Ohio. The com- 

 putations were made after Bessel's method. 



The corrections of the elements in the Nautical Almanac as de- 

 rived from eight equations of condition, from the durations of the 

 ring, and twelve from that of the eclipse, were 



e = — 14."782 = correction of moon's place on true orbit. 



g = — 7. "310 = correction of do. on a secondary to do. 



sj = — 3. "198 = correction of sum of semi-diameters. 



«' = + 0."515 = correction of difference of do. 



In which y and j/ refer to Burckhardt's semidiameter of the moon 

 and Bessel's semidiameter of the sun. The value of e is obtained by 

 assuming the longitude of the State House, Philadelphia, to be 

 5h 0m 39s, west of Greenwich. After applying these corrections of 

 the elements, Mr. Kendall deduces the following longitudes of the 

 places of observation. 



The constant value of a was 2.2035 whence, as = — 32s. 571. 

 The values in the last column are, calling d' the resulting longitude, 

 not corrected for the errors of the tables. 



d = d' + ae + &£ + en for beginning or end. 

 d = d' + ae + H + en' for the annular phase. 



