PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
SOCIETY. 
Ordinary Meeting, October 6th, 1868. 
J. P. Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., &c., President, in the Chair. 
The President, in announcing the loss which the Society 
had sustained in the lamented death of its late Treasurer, 
Mr. Robert Worthington, F.R.A.S., referred to his long con- 
nexion with other Literary and Scientific Societies and 
Institutions, and to the active and encouraging interest he 
always took in scientific subjects, especially those relating 
to astronomy, and stated that his observatory at Crumpsall 
Hall had attained a high position among the private obser- 
vatories of Europe. The work done comprised many valu- 
able observations of planetary, cometary, solar, and lunar 
phenomena; some thousands of observations of variable 
stars ; the discovery of ten new variables ; the determination 
of the places, and mapping down, of most of the stars in 
several of the more interesting of the large clusters ; and 
occasional observations of some of the nebulse. In conse- 
quence of the effects of an injury to his right eye, Mr. Wor- 
thington had not been able for several years to take an active 
part in the work of the observatory, and the observations 
have been made by his friend Mr. Baxendell, who has pub- 
lished some of the results in the Society's Memoirs and 
Proceedings— Lit. & Phil. Society. — Vol. VIII. — No. 1. — Session 1868-9. 
