now in the Society's press, and in the abstract which was pub- 

 lished in the Proceedings of December 4, 1840 (Vol. I. p. 30S . 

 Dr. Horner said, that on a re-examination of the paper of Dr. 

 Godman, in the 3d volume of the Transactions, he was satisfied 

 that the example there figured and described, was in fact the 

 upper jaw of the Tetracauledon. 



Professor Bache communicated a letter, from Mr. Riimkcr, 

 director of the Observatory at Hamburg, giving the positions 

 of a new comet discovered in the constellation Draco, by Mr. 

 Bremiker of Berlin, as observed at Berlin, October 17 and 18, 

 and at Hamburg, October 31, and November 1. — The observa- 

 tions given in the letter are later by two days than those 

 given in the last number yet received here, of Schumacher's 

 Astronomische Nachrichten. 



Mr. Walker mentioned the decease of Mr. Ebenezer Porter 

 Mason, at Richmond, Va., on the 26th ult., in the 22d year of 

 his age. Mr. Walker referred briefly, but in terms of high 

 praise, to the astronomical labours of Mr. Mason, and espe- 

 cially to those connected with nebulas, and double stars, the 

 results of which are recorded in the Society's Transactions. 



In the spring of 1840, Mr. Mason commenced a series of observa- 

 tions on double stars, with the 10 feet Dollond's reft actor, at Yale 

 College, and thus laid the foundation of that fatal disease, consump 

 tion, to which he fell an early victim. From his own measurement, 

 together with those previously published, he computed on Herschell's 

 method, an orbit for the remarkable pair of stars y Virginis, having a 

 period of about 171 years; which orbit gives their position conforma- 

 bly, within a small fraction of a degree, to the most recent measure- 

 ments of Struve and Kaisar, at the Pulkova, and Leyden observato- 

 ries, received since Mr. Mason's decease. The first ellipses computed 

 for this binary system by the younger Herschel, about the year 1830, 

 of 550 and 660 years, differ from recent observations nearly 20°. 

 The ephemeris of Mr. Madler, of the Berlin observatory, computed in 

 1838, from his ellipse with a period of 158 years, differs 8° from 

 their present position. 



Under a belief that exercise might restore his health, Mr. Mason 

 accepted an appointment as astronomical observer in Professor Ren- 

 wick's department of the northeastern boundary exploration of last 

 summer. But his disease was already fixed; and it terminated, at 

 the early age of 21, a life devoted for the last five vears to the cultiva- 



