REPORT ON ASTRONOMY. 
183 
of plan than those of foreign observatories. This, indeed, is the 
character which gave (in some respects) preeminent value to the 
Greenwich observations of last century, and which makes those 
of the present century highly valuable. In the reduction of 
these observations we begin to hill off. Though Dr. Brinkley 
has investigated from observations a new Table of refractions, 
and applied it to his own observations, yet Bradley’s Table, 
known twenty years since to be sensibly erroneous, is still the 
standing Table of refractions at Greenwich. The discussion of 
the reduced observations has been, I think, confined absolutely 
to the proper motion of stars. On one or two occasions a 
number of observations of the moon have (by order of the Board 
of Longitude,) been compared with the then existing Tables, 
but not with a view of improving the Tables. I have had oc¬ 
casion to mention the correction of the elements of the earth's 
orbit made by myself (from Greenwich observations), and the 
discovery, in consequence, of a new equation in the perturba¬ 
tions of the Earth and Venus. As far as I have been able to 
ascertain, this was the first improvement in the solar Tables 
made by an Englishman since the time of Halley, and the first 
addition to the solar theory since the time of Newton. From 
English observations of planets it has been impossible to extract 
a result, because scarcely any have been made. To show the 
extent of this deficiency, I will mention a mortifying circum¬ 
stance that has occurred to myself. In order to verify com¬ 
pletely the equation above alluded to, I was desirous of collect¬ 
ing observations of Venus near her inferior conjunction. In 
examining the Greenwich observations I found that no oppor¬ 
tunity of making this observation was omitted by Bradley or 
his immediate successor Bliss ; soon after the accession of Mas- 
kelyne it was wholly neglected ; and from that time till several 
years after his death scarcely an observation is to be found: 
several conjunctions have been passed over by the present 
Astronomer Royal; five however have been completely ob¬ 
served. Under these circumstances, (though the deficiency for 
the latter part of the time only might be supplied from scattered 
foreign observations,) considering how desirable it is, in a research 
of some delicacy, to use observations made at the same place, 
I believe that I shall be compelled to abandon it entirely. The 
superior planets have been more frequently observed, and those 
but very little. And generally as to the comparison of theory 
with observation, and its immediate consequences, the reducing 
of complicated phsenomena to simple laws, or the showing that 
new supplementary laws are necessary, forming altogether the 
most glorious employment for the intellect of man, 1 may state, 
