1331.] 
The great Comet of 1831. 
291 
— Pass , 
Motion, 
June 2. 
Direct. 
It was then approaching its perihelion slowly. 
Note . — -The foregoing computation was finished July 19th, and 
sent to the Friend of India a few days after. 
Discovery of the New Planet “Asia.” — Dy N. I’ . Pogson, Fsg., 
P. It. A. S., Government Astronomer, Madras. 
The notice of a discovery made nearly five months since, will, I 
fear, he deemed by many as almost too tardy to merit publication in 
the Transactions of the Asiatic Society. Having been requested, 
however, by His Excellency Sir W. Denison, to communicate the cir- 
cumstances of the discovery, I have much pleasure in doing so, and 
by way of amends for the lateness of the intelligence, am enabled to 
add the elements of the planet’s elliptical orbit, calculated from 
observations made with the equatorial of the Madras Observatory. 
For many years past, when attached to the Radcliffe Observatory 
at Oxford, it has been my practice to devote such leisure time as my 
official duties permitted, to the pursuit of more entertaining branches 
of Astronomical science than legitimately belong to the steady 
routine work of a public Observatory. Amongst other objects, one 
which has rewarded me pretty fairly was the construction of more 
accurate charts of certain portions of the heavens than had been yet 
attempted. With a considerable amount of pleasing toil, six charts 
were completed in about as many years ; and by subjecting the 
celestial spaces thus mapped to systematic scrutiny, they have realiz- 
ed not less than five new planets, and a dozen new variable Stars.' 
The immediate object of this communication was the last of these 
discoveries, and being the first planet detected in this quarter of the 
globe was named “ Asia,” strictly in accordance with the usual 
asteroidal nomenclature, which has hitherto been confined exclusively 
to the Homan and Grecian mythology ; and peculiarly appropriate 
W. S. Mackay. 
2 p 
