38§ DISTANCE OP THE STARS. 



lying on ice melts it sooner than warm water, so fov tho same 

 reason the water which lay on the top of these pits was, as he 

 observes, warmed by the wind which passed over them, and 

 that which was in the bottom of the pit cold, of course it had 

 a tendency to melt downwards rather than at the sides. Now, 

 Sir, if you will have the goodness to publish this in your Jour- 

 nal, so that Count Rumford may see it, you will oblige me in 

 hopes that 1 may see what he thinks of my account of this 

 phenomenon. 



I am, 



'Sir, &c. &c. 



A constant Reader. 



Remark hy M. De Lalande on the Distance of the Sfars. 



Distance of JIJfURlNG th« last century it has been believed, that tlis 

 the stars. annual parallax of the stars, that is the difi'eren'ce of their situ- 



ations in the course of six months, relative to the position 

 of the earth, does not vary a single second ; whence it results 

 that their distance must exceed seven millions of millions of 

 leagues. 



M. Piazzi, at Palermo, and M. Callandrelli, at Rome, have 

 recently made observations on several of the stars, from which 

 it appears that some of the stars give a difference of five 

 seconds, particularly Lyra, which, next to Sirius, is the most 

 brilliant star in our hemisphere, from whence it results that it 

 is one of the least distant. If there be five seconds of simple 

 parallax, the distance ought to be fourteen hundred. thousand 

 millions of leagues, that is to say, .five times less than was- 

 previously supposed. But these observations axe not yet suffi- 

 ciently numerous and complete, to afl'ord a perfectly cf^rtain 

 conclusion. 



XI. 



