PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 



1832-J833. No. 14. 



November 21, 1833. 



JOHN WILLIAM LUBBOCK, Esq., M.A., V.P. and Treasurer, 

 in the Chair. 



A paper was read, entitled, " Historical Notice to the supposed 

 Identity of the large mass of Meteoric Iron now in the British Mu- 

 seum, with the celebrated Otumpa Iron described by Rubin de Celis, 

 in the Philosophical Transactions for 1786." Communicated in a 

 letter from Woodbine Parish, jun., Esq., F.R.S., to Charles Konig, 

 Esq., Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society. 



The mass of iron in question was transmitted to Buenos Ayres, for 

 the purpose of being manufactured into fire-arms, at the period when 

 the people of that country declared themselves independent of Spain j 

 but a supply of arms having in the meanwhile arrived, it was depo- 

 sited in the Arsenal, and afterwards given to Mr. Parish, who trans- 

 mitted it to England. Its identity with the mass of iron described by 

 De Celis, though probable, is not exactly determined. 



A paper was also read, entitled, " Observations of Nebula? and 

 Clusters of Stars, made at Slough, with a Twenty-feet Reflector, be- 

 tween the Years 1825 and 1833." By Sir John F. W. Herschel, 

 K.H., F.R.S. 



This paper contains the results of observations begun in 1825, and 

 assiduously prosecuted till the commencement of the present year, 

 for the purpose of reviewing the nebulae and clusters of stars disco- 

 vered by his father, the late Sir William Herschel, and also of extend- 

 ing his discoveries, and enlarging our knowledge of the nature and 

 physical constitution of those remarkable and mysterious bodies. 

 Since the recent improvements in the achromatic telescope, and the 

 increased diligence of astronomers in surveying every part of the 

 heavens, and detecting the passage of comets, the want of an exten- 

 sive list of nebulae has become continually more urgent ; and hence 

 the author was induced to supply, as far as he was able, that deficiency, 

 which he has now attempted by simply stating the results of his own 

 observations, in preference to waiting until he could present them to 

 the Society in the more complete form of a general catalogue of ne- 

 bulae and clusters visible in this latitude. All the observations here 

 given have been reduced to a common epoch, and arranged in the 



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