60 C. H. F. Peters— Observations of Comets. 
has been once made, the effect is automatically repeated. Of 
course, no increase in number of the wires, under these cireum- 
stances, ~— weight to that from the first satisfactory Be 
tion, but, w h the usual five tallies of five wires each, the 
server can na if he please, obtain five independent bisae 
tions,* or one for each tally, and in this case the chronographie 
record corresponding to the last wire of each tally is assumed to 
be the significant one, unless the contrary is recorded. 
Under the general conception, then, of the. possibility of 
diminishing to. any limit personal error, by employing brief 
views of the star or wire and utilizing the phenomena of per- 
sistence of vision, the par ticularly described device assumes 
to dispense with the observer's record upon the chronograph 
altogether, and to substitute a purely automatic one, giving the 
same virtual result as though the image of the star were a tan- 
gible object, itself making electric contact with each wire. The 
share of personality in any observation, is relegated to the prior 
+8 of bisecting a star, virtually motionless with relation to the 
secting wire, so that if (as seems to be the case) this act is 
independent of quickness or slowness of perception, of the time 
of cognition, or of the speed of nerve transmission ; peers / 
in the technical sense, appears not to intervene at a 
Art. IX. ees of Comets made at the oe Observa- 
‘y of Hamilton College; by C. H. F. P 
1, Comet 1877, IL (Winnecke’s) : 
1877. Meag t. H. C. App. AR. App. Dee. No, of Comp. 
Apr. 6. 16" 18™ 56%/22" 8™ 46°29°; +16° 23’ 12°7” 
i 39 25 |2 10 23°76 8 46 6°0 10 
“10.418 260 24: 192 38.1971 215. 22:32 10 
“12,115 30 34/22 14. 18°84 24 10 11°5 10 
(34144 64.97 122 2.16... 3648 27 i 2S 14 
“93.114 8 82 |22 382 39°34 43 3 33°9 10 
May 2.|14 0 48 |23 12 23°07 62. 25 28:1 10 
19.;138: 41. 37. ..2 50. 42°20 79 . 48 .19°5 8 
“13.112 46 23 | 3 38 25°44 a0. 10. 32°7 8 
ee 68 52 | 4 21 43°23; 80 8 25°0 8 
“99,.;12 2 6| 8 41 11°96 |-+62 21 31°6 9 
* I regret that this lengthy description may convey an agus of complexity 
as to a really very simple apparatus, all we ask of which, as a timekeeper, is that 
and connecting it with the wires, and i eed not exceed that of the break- 
circuit my teegega box; it may ssaed er’ Bela-work He conveniently enca' 
with the latter. 
