REPORT ON ASTRONOMY. 
143 
Brinkley’s in the Irish Transactions, 1828. The latter is 
founded solely on the supposition that (as appears from ob¬ 
servations), the three stars, a Orionis, a Cygni, and Rigel, have 
the same relative position as in Bradley’s time, and therefore 
probably have no proper motion. The result as to precession 
is exhibited as the mean of results from thirteen different stars, 
but this, taken literally, may convey an erroneous notion to the 
reader; the result is obtained from one star only, (which, as¬ 
suming the direction of motion of the pole, is theoretically suf¬ 
ficient,) and any one of the three stars whose relative positions 
have not altered, or any other star whose place is corrected so 
as to refer it to the same position with regard to them, would 
give just the same result. An ample discussion of proper 
motions may be found in Cacciatore’s observations : a valuable 
paper on the same subject has also been lately communicated 
by Mr. Baily to the Royal Astronomical Society. The places 
of some stars in the southern hemisphere have been determined 
independently by Mr. Rumker. 
IV. The places of a number of principal stars being well 
established, those of other stars are easily established by com¬ 
parison with them. Catalogues of small stars may therefore 
be made by astronomers whose instruments are not competent 
to fix independently the places of fundamental stars. The 
principal original catalogues in use at the beginning of the cen¬ 
tury were, one of 387 stars deduced from Bradley’s observa¬ 
tions, and published in the Nautical Almanac 1773; one by 
Mayer, of 992 stars ; and three by Lacaille*, (of which one in¬ 
cluded 1942 southern stars ; one, 515 zodiacal stars; and one, 
307 not confined to any part of the heavens). Besides these 
there were many compilations (as Wollaston’s general catalogue); 
and many of less authority, and principally catalogues of smaller 
stars, were published in the Continental Ephemerides, especially 
in the Connaissance cles Temps. In 1800 Wollaston’s Fasciculus 
Astronomicus appeared, including the circumpolar regions to 
2 5° N.P.D. In 1801 the Histoire Celeste was published, 
comprising observations of 50,000 stars, made principally by 
Lefrancais Delalande at the Ecole Militaire. Tables for the 
convenient reduction of these observations, on a principle sug¬ 
gested by Bessel in the Astronomische Nachricliten , No. 2, have 
since been published by Schumacher (in 1825). These stars 
w r ere for the most part observed but once. About the same 
time appeared Bode’s Charts of the Heavens, including a con- 
* In the Memoirs of the Astronomical Society, Mr. Baily has discussed and 
republished Mayer’s and Lacaille’s catalogues. 
