REPORT ON ASTRONOMY. 
127 
they were made, and this circumstance alone gave them great 
value. So little had this been formerly understood, that Brad¬ 
ley’s original observations, and the first part of Maskelyne’s, 
were considered private property ; great delays had conse¬ 
quently occurred in the printing of them, and only the first part 
of Bradley’s Greenwich observations was at this time publish¬ 
ed*. The concluding part, however, was published in a few 
years : and this work reflects honour on the liberality of the 
University of Oxford and the care of the Savilian Professors 
who superintended it. An uninterrupted series of observations 
thus existed, made on the same plan and at the same place, 
and published with the fullest details. But this statement 
cannot be extended to any other astronomical institution. Ob¬ 
servations had been made at Oxford, and transcribed, but not 
published : observations had been made at Armagh, and a 
standard catalogue had been deduced. I know of no other 
public observatories in activity in this country ; and few obser¬ 
vations seem to have been made by private persons. On the 
Continent, the several observatories of Paris and that of Berlin 
were the most important. At the national Observatory of Paris 
observations apparently were not made on any regular plan, and 
were only published in the Connaissance des Temps ; the im¬ 
mense collection of observations of small stars made principally 
at the Observatory of the Ecole Militaire, was however com¬ 
pletely published in the Histoire Celeste. Many irregular 
observations made at Yiviers, Montauban, Mirepoix, &c., were 
also published, seldom with great detail, in the Connaissance 
des Temps. In like manner the observations made at Berlin 
and the various German observatories were imperfectly pub¬ 
lished in the Berliner Jalirbuch and (I believe,) in the Vienna 
Ephemeris f : those made in Italy were abstracted in the Bffe- 
meridi di Milano% , &c. Thus, besides the Greenwich Obser¬ 
vations, there existed no regular repository of observations, 
or discussions of observations, except these Ephemerides and 
(occasionally) the Transactions of the Societies of London, 
Paris, Berlin, Petersburg, Turin, Modena, &c. The necessary 
* Within a few months, the observations made by Bradley before his residence 
at Greenwich have been published, under the superintendence of Professor 
Rigaud, at the expense of the University of Oxford. They include the observa¬ 
tions by which the most important of his discoveries were made, 
f I have not been able to procure a copy of this work. 
f As I shall have occasion frequently to cite these Ephemerides, it is proper 
to mention that the Connaissance des Temps and the Berliner Jalirbuch have 
generally been published three years in advance, and the Effemeridi di Milano 
one year in advance. 
