495 
a whin rock, adhering to a prenhite, and 
Mt producing a jelly with acids. 
Mr. THOMAS Buiszzarp, F.R.S. has 
given an interefting cafe of a woman who 
died fuddenly, after confiderable fatigue, 
and who, juit before her death, expreffed 
adefire that her body might be examined, 
en account of fome very extraordinary 
fenfations that fhe had felt for a fhort time 
Before this attack. 
It appears that the had been fix times 
pregnant, and, of thefe, twice delivered of 
a living child: the caufe of her death was 
owing to an extra-uterine geftation hav- 
mgtaken place, by which the procefs was 
going on in the fallopian-tube, the embryo 
having refted there, inftead of pafling to 
the cavity of the uterus: that the tube 
had enlarged to the greateft capable ex- 
tent, and then burft. Mr. Blizzard makes 
the following obfervations on this cafe : 
‘© The very early impregnation after 
abortion is a circumftance that feems en- 
titled to remark. Only five weeks had 
mtervened between her laft mifcarriage 
and her death ; and it muft be fuppofed 
that impregnation happened a ccnfiderable 
time before her death, from the changes 
which had evidently taken place. If I 
might be allowed to venture a conjeCture 
of thefe phenomena, does it not appear 
that there might have been fome irregular 
contraction of the fallopian-tube, which 
3s probably mufcular, that caufed the em- 
bryo to reft where it did ? It was proved 
there was no permanent caule of obitruc- 
tion in the tube.” 
This paper is accompanied with two 
plates, elucidating the fact. 
MATHEMATICS AND METEOROLOGY- 
Mr. James Ivory has given in avery 
elaborate paper, “* A new and univerfal 
Solution of Kepler’s Problem,’’ To draw 
a@ firaight line from an eccentric point in the 
diameter of a femicircle, fo that the whole 
femicircle may be to the fedior in a given 
vatio. 
The rules and formulas of computation 
deduced by Mr. Ivory from the analyfis, 
are, he conceives, in all cafes whatever, 
fufficient for computing the eccentric ano- 
maly, when the mean anomaly is given.— 
‘They embrace the problem in its fulleft 
extent, and, in point of univerfality, no- 
thing more can be defired. Hence is ob- 
tained a general and direé&t method of de- 
termining the motion of a body defcribing 
an elliptic orbit, whether the eccentricity 
of the orbit be fmail or great, fo as even 
to comprehend the cafe when the orbit, 
having become indefinitely flatterted, the 
Proecedings of Learned Societies. 
[Dee. 1, 
motion of the body is no Jonger ina curve, 
but in firaight line tending to the center 
of forces. 
In order to illuftrate the method of 
computation required by the rules which 
he has inveftigated, the author fubjoine 
two examples, of which the frft is “ To 
draw a chord from the extremity of the 
diameter of a femicircle, that fhall divide 
the femicircle into two equal parts.” The 
fecond is, ** From a given point in the 
circumference of a circle, to draw two 
_chords that fhall divide the circle into 
three equal parts.”” 
As the only cafes of Kepler’s problem 
which are interefting to the aftronomical 
oblerver are, when the eccentricity 1s 
very fmall, and when it is very great ; 
that is, the cafe of the planets, all of which 
defcribe orbits nearly circular ; and the 
cafe of comets, which move in eccentric 
orbits ; Mr. Ivory conceives that in the 
former part of the paper he has accom- 
plithed all that was neceffary as to the 
theory ; and, asa proper fequel, he now 
applies the general method, firft to the 
planets, and then to the finding the ano- 
maly of the eccentric of the comet of 
1682, and which re-appeared in 1759, ac- 
cording to the prediétion of Dr. Halley. 
The author laftly applies the problem to 
find the true place of a comet in an eccen= 
tric orbit. 
The other mathematical paper in this 
part of the Tranfaétions is entitled “ A 
new Method of expreffing the co-efficients 
of the Developement of the Algebraic 
Formula (a* X b°—2ab cos)" by means 
of the Perimeters of two Ellipfes, when 
z denotes the half of any odd Number ; 
together with an Appendix, contain- 
ing the Inveftigation of a Formula for the 
ReGtification of any Arch of an Ellipfe.— 
By WILLIAM WALLACE.’ —This pa- 
per admits, as the mathematician will 
perceive, of no abridgment, 
Mr. PLrayrair’s Meteorological Ab- 
firaét for the Years 1797,1798, and 1799, 
is a very interefting paper. As this isa 
fubject which obtains more of the public 
attention at prefent than was formerly at- 
tached to it; and, as philofophers in 
various parts of Europe have repeatediy 
called upon men of obfervation to purfue 
it as a fcience, from which, it is hoped, 
great advantages may eventually be de- 
rived, we fhall give Mr. Playfair’s method 
of recording meteorological faéts. 
To reprefent more accurately the pro- 
grefs of the feafons, every month is di- 
vided into three parts, and the ftate of 
the barometer and thermometer is given 
or 
