26 Hiftory of Aftronamy for the Year 1803. 
given for the profecution of the objects 
originally propofed. 
Unie(s fuch a transfer fhould be etfeéted, 
and until it takes place, there dees not ap- 
pear to your Committee to be any better 
means of difcharging the obligations of 
Government towards the Nova Scotians 
and Maroons, or of obtaining the other 
beneficial purpofes propofed by the mfti- 
tution of the Colony, than by fupporting 
the Company's government as now elta- 
blithed. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
HISTORY of ASTRONOMY for the YEAR 
1803. Read at the College de France 
Ey JERGME DE LaLANDE™®, 
HIS year will not appear fo remark- 
able as the two preceding ones, in 
which new planets and comets were difco-- 
vered; but it prefents a feries of import- 
ant labours, undertaken for the improve- 
ment of the fcience. 
M. Piazzi has publifhed at Palermo a 
~very valuable work ; a catalogue of nearly 
g7ooo ftars, each obferved fevera] times 
with excellent inftrumests, calculated and 
reduced to the year 1800. And we have 
received the catalogue of 500 ftars by M. 
Cagnoli, with their right afcenfions and 
declinatioms, which are very correct: on 
this ~orkill has been employed twenty 
years, 
Lalande, my nephew, with his new aids 
and an immenfe number of his own obier- 
vations, has entirely reconftru€ted the ca- 
talogue of 600 new ftars, which for many 
years he has inferted in the Conno‘fJance des 
Temps, and which ferves as a foundation 
for the calculations of the greater part of 
our aftronomers. 
As the ftars are the foundation of all 
our aftronomica! determinations, Dr. Mat. 
kelyne has carefully revifed the thirty-four 
ftars which he announced as having the 
utmoft degree of precifion, and wh:ch we 
have all employed, as being entitled to 
full confidence: he found in them an error 
of 2". 
I have calculated fome hundreds of the 
fun’s altitudes obferved in England and 
France, tor feveral years back, before and 
after the equincx, and have deduced from 
them the {un’s right afcenfion, and con{e- 
quently that of the ftars which had been 
compared with him. I have found that it 
is neceflary to add 5’’ to the pofitions of 
the flars, which Dr. Mafkelyne gave us as 
* Extradted from the Magazin Encyclopé- 
@iguey 00.15, Nivofe, an, 12. 
[Auguft f, 
being certain to a fecond, and which all 
aftronomers employed with the . greateft 
fecurity ; but perceiving that obfervations 
made at the difance of 40° from the ze- 
nith, and at 60° gave right afcenfions 
which differed fometimes 15'’, I concluded 
that there were errors of divifion of 5’ 
in the interval of 20 degrees: it will 
therefore be neceflary to recur to the whole 
circle, to verify the mural quadrants em- 
ployed at Paris and at Greenwich. 
M. Delambre, at the fummer folftice, 
made an obfervation of the obliquity of 
the ecliptic with a multiplying circle. The 
mean of four years obfervations, and of 
two years made by my nephew Lalande, 
gave as the mean for 1800, 23° 28’: this 
is the refult of more than 3500 obferva- 
tions; but it fuppofes the height of the 
pole to be 48° so! 13/’, inflead of 14%, 
and the latter fuppofes the refraction of 
Bradley increaled by 1’. By thefe means 
he makes the wioter to agree with the 
fummer folltice, between which there was 
a difference of 7 or 8, The bad wea- 
ther did not permit him to obferve the 
winter folftice with the circle, which I 
cauled to be conftruéted by Lenoir for the 
objervatory of Palermo. The aftronomers 
Bradley, Lacaille, and Mayer, found for 
1750,23° 28’ 18.6!’ ; the fecular decreafe, 
therefore, would be 42‘! per century; and 
I prefer this refult to that of the equation 
of the fun produced by Venus, which 
would give 50’. 
Dr. Mafkelyne found, with a mural 
quadrant at Greenwich, 23° 27’ 57’! 
but the Englifh have not yct adopted our 
repeating cicles, with which one may be 
certain to a fecond, and with which no 
errors in the divifions are to be appre- 
hended. 
Piazzi, at Palermo, found 23° 27’ 56°6!", 
with an excellent circle by Ramsden, but 
not a repeating circle. 
The meafure of a degree of the earth 
in Lapland, which M. Melanderhielm has 
precured for us, and the calculations it 
required, were tranfmitted to us in the 
moith of April, by Mefirs. Svanberg, 
Overbom, Holmquift, and Palander : they 
have found the degree to be 57197 toifes. 
That foued by Maupertuis, Clairaut, Ca- 
mus, Lemonnter, Outhier, and Celfus, 
in 1736, was 57405, which is greater by 
208 toifes. This enormous difference was 
fufpected. The degree of Lapland was 
at variance with all theory, and with every 
other meafurement: it gave to the earth 
too great a flattening; whereas the new 
| degree gives =4., which is not much dif- 
ferent trom the 34,, given by the new 
. meridian 
