HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 393 
“ On quitting his apartment at the Observatory, he felt himself, as it were, expa¬ 
triated, and he therefore constructed one at the Mazarin College. 
" He made two kinds of observations, the one for his own particular inquiries, 
and the other for public instruction: in the second class we must comprehend 
those which he published in 1743, on a comet that appeared in the month of Fe¬ 
bruary; on,the conjunction of Mars and Saturn ; on the passage of the Sun in the 
parallel of Arcturus; on the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter; on the Sun in its 
apogeum; on the passage of the Sun in the parallel of Procyon; on the altitude of 
the upper extremity of the Sun in the tropic of Capricorn; on the planet Mercury 
in the Sun; on the Sun in its perigeum; with inquiries concerning the place of the 
apogeum of that luminary. 
"In the same year he published his laborious process on the meridian; but would 
not suffer his name to appear in the frontispiece of the work, and abandoned all the 
honour to his associate, who did not fail, however, to make all due acknowledge¬ 
ment for the essential assistance which he received from M. de la Caille. 
“ At length he acquired, what he so well deserved, the character of a consum¬ 
mate astronomer; and having, by his immense labours, acquired a most profound 
knowledge of his science, he determined to convey to others an acquaintance with 
its principles. He accordingly composed his Elements of Astronomy, and published 
an octavo edition of them, with figures, &c. which has been translated into the 
English, Spanish, and Latin languages. 
“ He also composed elementary Lessons of Mechanics, and the Elements of 
Optics and Perspective. Various other curious and admirable papers on astrono¬ 
mical subjects are to be found in the Memoirs of the Academy. 
“ In 1746, he published the first part of his Ephemeris, which comprehends ten 
years. There is a kind of Supplement tQ it in the Chronological Table, which was 
placed at the head of the Art to verify Dates. This table reaches to the year 1800. 
He composed the part that relates to the eclipses, which is the most important. 
“ In 1593, a comet had been observed at Zerbst, in the principality of Anhalt, 
from whose apparition new discoveries might be made in astronomy. M. de la 
Caille therefore gave the theory of it to the Academy in 1747, with the same accu¬ 
racy as if he had himself observed it. Waltherus had, at the close of the fifteenth 
century, made observations at Nuremberg, and M. de la Caille, in 1749, commu¬ 
nicated to the Academy his Memoir on Waltherus. . 
3E 
