380 Analysis of Books. [Juny, 
streak along the middle line of its belly, a character confined to few among the 
Mammalia. 
With respect to the Paradoxurus aureus of M. F. Cuvier, he stated that he was 
inclined to believe that it really belonged to the genus on account of its naked 
soles, but was certainly not, as had been imagined, the young of Par. Typus. 
Mr. Gray added, that figures of the Parr. Pennantii, Bondar, prehensilis, Pal- 
lasi, and Hamiltonii, are engraved for the forthcoming No. of the ‘ Illustrations of 
Indian Zoology.’ 
— ee 
— a ee 
VIL.—Anatysis or Books. 
Result of Astronomical Observations made at the Hon’ ble the East India Company’s 
Observatory at Madras. By Thomas Granville Taylor, Esq. Astronomer to the 
Hon’ ble Company. Vol. I. for 1831. 
The Madras Observatory has long since established its character, as well for 
laborious diligence in the proper duties of its professional calling, as for other 
collateral researches which naturally fall into the hands of a scientific astronomer. 
Under Mr. GoLtpINGHAM’s superintendence four ponderous foolscap tomes of 
astronomical observations were given to the public, and one volume of ‘‘ Papers’’ 
containing miscellaneous matter of great interest. 
From the imperfcction of the instruments then attached to the establishment, 
(a 20-inch transit instrument, a 12-inch altitude instrument, and a zenith sector,) 
the astronomical results were not of a class to satisfy expectations in the present 
advanced state of that science. In other investigations Mr. Goldingham’s name 
will be long quoted as of paramount authority. His pendulum experiments at 
Madras, and on the equator, are of the highest value: his determination of the 
velocity of sound under different pressures, temperatures, and directions of the 
wind, from a very long series of experiments, is most conclusive and satisfactory : 
and his meteorological series for 21 years, although unfortunate in the hours 
selected for the Barometer, contains abundant means of fixing the curves of tem- 
perature and pressure for the latitude of Madras. 
But the present volume (printed also in a better form and type), is the com- 
mencement of a new and purely astronomical series. We may date the regene- 
ration of the Madras establishment from the year 1830, when a 5-feet transit 
instrument, a 4-feet mural circle, and a 5-feet telescope equatorially mounted, 
which had sometime previously arrived from England, all made expressly for 
the observatory, were set up for use upon a solid and insulated basement of 
masonry, 45 feet long and 12 feet broad, tapering to 6 at top, and 7 feet high. 
With every particular of the adjustment of the new instruments, Mr. Taytor 
makes us fully acquainted : the setting up and the error of the meridian mark : the 
errors of level, of collimation, of azimuth, and of the clock, for every day of the 
year; and the formula applied in each case for the necessary corrections, Mr. 
TayLor is so far of the French school that he prefers computing the corrections due 
to each observation rather than attempting to avoid them by continual adjustment 
of the screws of his instruments, and in this practical maxim we concur with him 
from experience ; the more immovable the standing parts of an instrument remain, 
the more consistent and even will the observations be found: 
