declinations of some of the principal fixed stars. 37 
turns is very great, and likewise southward. It is situated 
in that part of the heavens where the southern tendency is 
least discernible, and is nearly quiescent ; its proper motion 
in polar distance may therefore be considered as uniform. 
There is a circumstance that deserves notice, though it may 
be merely accidental : the stars in the Greenwich catalogue, 
whose proper motions are south, nearly equal in number 
those that are north, yet the quantity of southern proper mo- 
tion exceeds the northern in the proportion of four to one. 
I shall at present offer no conjecture on the cause of these 
deviations, but endeavour, by continued observations, more 
accurately to ascertain the law which they follow. Should 
the weather prove favourable for observation, I hope before 
the Society separate for the summer, to be able to give greater 
accuracy to the numbers here subjoined. Indeed I should 
not have made so early a communication on the subject, but 
as the Greenwich observations of 1820 are about to be pub- 
lished, they might without this explanation have appeared 
erroneous ; for I find that during that year the instrument 
was rather defective from general unsteadiness, than from 
any perceptible deviation of the telescope. It was not till 
after the month of February, 1821, that the instrument got 
completely out of repair. It must however be admitted, that 
the observations of that year ought not to be employed in 
the determination of such small quantities as form the sub- 
ject of the present communication. 
