400 
Scientific Intelligence. 
at the end of June in S. latitude 77°, its light wiU be more than 
26 times as intense as when it was discovered at Marseilles on 
the 26th November 1818. The following elements have been 
deduced by Dr Brinkley from three observations made on the 
meridian, on the 4th, 5th and 6th of July, and further cor- 
rected by observations on the 4th, 13th and 20th of July. 
Passage of perihelion at Observatory of 1 
Trinity College, Dublin. Mean time, j 
Perihelion distance, - _ . 
Longitude of node, - - - 
Inclination, . » . . _ 
Place of perihelion, . - - - 
Motion direct. 
June 27, 16^ 26' 46" 
0.341051 
9« 3° 43' 44// 
- B0M5'53" 
9« 17* 5' 5" 
3. Figure of the Sun. — M. Mosotti, in a Memoir on the 
Figure of the Sun, after giving analytical expressions for the 
horizontal and vertical diameters of that planet, compares the 
values which they furnish with 1683 observations of the sun’s 
diameter made by M. Cesaris, and he arrives at the same con- 
clusion which M. Littrow had deduced from more than 400 of 
Maskelyne’s observations, viz. that the sun is elongated towards 
its poles glj. The determinations of M. Piazzi, and the appli- 
cation of M. Mosotti’s formulae to some observations of M. Car- 
lini, give the opposite result, that the sun is flattened about 
at its poles. — Ephemerides de Milan^ 1820. 
OPTICS. 
4. Case of Lateral Mirage. — A curious case of lateral mirage 
was observed at Geneva on the 17th September 181 8, at 10 o’clock, 
P. M. by MM. Jurine and Soret. A bark near Bellerive, at 
the distance of about 4000 toises from Geneva, Avas seen ap- 
proaching to Geneva by the Ift bank of the lake ; and at the 
same time, an image of the sails was observed above the water, 
which, instead of following the direction of the bark, separated 
from it, and appeared to approach Geneva by the right bank of 
the lake, — the image moving from east to west, while the bark 
moved from north to south. When the image separated from 
the bark, it was of the same dimensions as the bark ; but it di- 
minished as it receded from it, so as to be reduced to one half 
when the mirage ceased. — rJonrn, de Physique^ Mars 1820, 
tom. xc. p. 217 . 
