£ 453 I 
LxlreiSl of a Letter from the Rev. James Auguftus 
Hamilton, M. A. to the Rev. Nevil Malkelyne, D. ZX 
F. R. S. giving an Account of his Obfervation of the Franft of 
Mercury over the Sun, of Nov. 12, 1782, obferved at Cook’s- 
Town, near Dungannon, in Ireland. 
Read April 20, 1783. 
S I R, 
Cook’s-Town in Ireland, 
Nov. 16, 1782. 
F ROM the very indulgent eye with which you regarded my 
agronomical wifhes, when I had the pleafure of feeing you 
at Greenwich, I make no doubt of your pardon for offering my 
imperfedt efforts towards obferving the late tranfit of Mercury. 
1 do not mean to trouble you with the perufal of the labours 
of the week, but only toftate to you my general apparatus and 
refults, and to requeft your kind communication of your obfer- 
vation of the fame phenomenon, if it occurred at Greenwich. 
I have only a good common clock with a varnifhed deal pen- 
dulum, moving fidereal time ; a tranfit-inffrument, of four feet 
eight inches focal diftance, with a triple objedt-glafs, and the axis 
of two feet, on folid done pillars, the bale common to both, 
each pillar being a fingle Rone of five feet high : the collima- 
tion is conftantly attended to, and was examined a day or two 
preceding the tranfit by an obfervation of the * polar ffar (the 
* The weather being hazy prevented the horizontal meridian mark being 
diftin&ly obfervable, 
6 only 
