8. Mr William Lawson, manufacturer in Gorbals. He was walking along with two men on the quay at the Bromielaw, when the boom of a veffel broke loose, and struck him on the head, and instantly killed him. The other men, who were beat down likewife, were but flightly hurt. 9. At Arbigland, Mrs Craik, wife of William Craik, Efq; 10. Of a decline, after a lingering illness, at his feat at New-Hall, in Effex, in the 42d year of his age, the Right Hon. Drigue Billers Olmius, Lord Waltham. His Lordship dying without iffue, the title becomes extinct, and the family eftates devolve to his Lordfhip's only fifter, the Hon. Elifabeth Luttrell, wife to the Hon. Captain John Luttrell, a brother of the Duchefs of Cumberland, and one of the Commiffioners of Excife in Eng. land. 12. At Leith, Major Henry Balfour. 13. At Hill-Houfe, Mifs Marion Forbes, daughter to the late Mr William Forbes writer to the fignet. 15. At Edinburgh, Lady Grant of Monymuck. 15. At Bath, Colonel Sir James Buchanan, Kt, Major of the royal regiment of Artillery. 16. At London, his Grace George Beauclerk, Duke of St Alban's, Earl of Burford, Hereditary Grand Falconer of England, Hereditary Registrar of the Court of Chancery, and Captain of a regiment of foot. His Grace is fucceeded in his titles and effates by Lord Vere Beauclerk. 16. Near Briftol, Mrs Willoughby, daughter of the deceafed Capt. James Bruce, late of the 26th regiment of foot. 17. At Glasgow, in the 73d year of his age, Mr John Bogle, lately from Galloway. 17. At Hoxton, where he had been confined fince October 1985, Mr William Breretou, late of Drury-lane Theatre. He was the fon of Major Brereton, formerly Master of the Ceremonies at Bath, and appeared the fift time at Drury-lane, in December 1768, in the character of Douglas. 18. At Greenwich, aged 94, Capt. William Martin, upwards of 40 years in his Majesty's navy. 20. At North Berwick, in East Lothian, Mr William Hogg, late merchant in Edinburgh. 21. At Kilconquhar, Mrs Chalmers, fpoufe of the Rev. Dr Chalmers, minister of that parish. Lately, in the 100dth year of his age, Leir Whitehead, of Bramham, in the Weft Riding, Yorkshire, formerly a very noted swift runner. He won the Buck's Head, for feve ral years, at Castle Howard, given by the grandfather of the prefent Earl of Carlifle. He alfo won the Five Queen Anne Guineas, given by William Aillaby, Efq; of Studley, acar Rippon, beating the then noted Indian, and nine others, selected tò fart against him. In his and year, he run four miles over Bramham Muir in nineteen minutes; and, what is ftill more remarkable, in his 95th and 96th years, he frequently walked from Bramham to Tadcaster, which is four miles, in an hour. He retained his faculties until the last period of his exiftence. Salisbury, Feb. 26. On Sunday the 18h, à very melancholy inftance of mortality prefented itself in the family of William Wentworth, a fisherman, at Britford, near this city. Four of his children died within 18 hours, in the measles, attended with a putrid fever, and the fifth and only child lay then dangerously ill. The four children were buried together in one grave on Wednesday last. PREFERMENTS. From the London Gazette. The King has been pleased, Jan. 26. to appoint Sir James Eyre, Ki, Chief Baron of Exchequer, on the furrender of Sir John Skynner, Kt, late Chief Baron, Feb. 7. to confer the honour of knighthood on Alexander Thomfon, of Lincoln's Inn, in the county of Middlefex, Efq; Feb 9 to confer the honour of knighthood on Nath Grofe, Serjeant at Law. Whitehall, Feb. 9. to order writs, commanding Sir Alexander Thomson, of Lincoln's Ina, in the county of Middlefex, Kt, Simon Le Blanc, and Soulden Lawrence, both of the Inner Temple, London, Efqs, to take upon them the ftate and degree of Serjeant at Law. They this day appeared at the bar of the Court of Chancery, where their writs being read, the ufual oaths were administered to them, and they afterwards went through the other ufual ceremonies in the Court of Common Pleas. to appoint Sir Nafh Grofe, Kt, Serjeant at Law, to be one of the Juftices affigned to hold pleas before the King himself. to appoint Sir Alexander Thomson, Kt, Serjeant at Law, to be one of the Barons of Exchequer. Feb. 10 to appoint Francis Barker, Efq; to be Clerk of the Cheque of the Yeomen of his Majesty's guard. Feb 17. to prefent the Rev. Robert Pearfon to the church and parifh of Ladykisk, ia the prefbytery of Chirafide, and county of Berwick, vacant by the death of the Rev. John Todd. to appoint James Stewart, Efq; to be Commiffary of the commiffariot of Orkney and Zetland, in the room of Patrick Græme, Efq; deceased. to appoint George Pratt, Efq; to be Deputy Keeper of the Regifter or Seifins and Reversions, in the thire of Kinro, in the foom of Charles Cooper, Efq; deceased. St James's, Feb. 19. This day the Rt Hơn, Charles 104 Preferments, Prices of Grain and Stocks, Mortality-bill, &c. Vol. 49. Charles Villiers, Comptroller of his Majesty's Household, was fworn of the Privy Council, and took his place at the Board accordingly. 20. to recommend to the dean and chapter of Lincoln, George Pretyman, D. D. to be elected Bishop of Lincoln, that fee being void by the tranflation of Dr Thomas Thurlow, to that of Durham.. 24. to appoint Nathaniel Green, Efq; (now Conful at Trieste), to be Conful at Niece, in the room of John Birkbeck, Efq; deceafed. to appoint George Miller, Efq; Conful in the States of North and South Carolina and Georgia, and Deputy Commiffary for commercial affairs to the United States of Ame rica. War-office, Jan. 17. 17th foot: Maj. Thomas Pitcairn, from the half-pay of the late 82d regiment, to be Major, vice Robert Clayton. War-office, Feb 24. 3d foot guards: Lieut.-Col. Robert Manners, from the half-pay of the 84th regiment, to be Captain Lieutenant, vice Duke of St Alban's. Office of Ordnance, Feb. 16. Corps of engineers: Lieut. Col. William Spry, to be Colonel, vice Maj.-Gen. William Roy, promoted. Capt. Elias Durnford, to be Lieutenant- Capt. Lieut. Matthew Pitts, to be Captain, ift battalion Ift foot: Maj. Oliver Nicolls, to be Lieutenant-Colonel, vice Frafer, deceafed. 5th foot: Eldeft Capt. John Smith, to be Major, vice Battier, refigned. 49th foot: Maj. Hew Dalrymple, from the 6th foot, to be Major, vice Veffey, exchanged. From other papers. His Grace the Duke of Montrofe has prefented Mr Patrick Graham, preacher of the gofpel, to the church of Aberfoil; and Mr Gavin Gibb, preacher of the gospel, to the church of Fintray. Jan. 31. The Presbytery of Edinburgh unanimously sustained a prefentation by the Magiftrates, Incorporations, and Kirk-Seffion of South Leith, to Mr Robert Dickfon to be Second Minister of that parish, and appointed a call to be moderated at Leith on the 23d February. Feb. 21. The Directors of the Eaft-India Company appointed Henry Holland, Efq: fecond, and Robert Maunfell, Efq; fourth of Council at Fort St George, Madrafs. 11. The Magiftrates of Edinburgh granted a presentation in favour of the Rev. Mr Wil liam Greenfield, Joint Profeffor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in this University, and prefently Minister of St Andrew's Church, to be one of the Ministers of the High or New Church, in room of the Rev. Mr Hardie, tranflated to the New North Church. Prices of Grain at Haddington, March 2. Beft. 185. 6 d. Second. 185. od. Third. 175. od. 18s. o d. 76 s. 6d. 155. od. 155. od. 6 d. Wheat, 133. 6d. IIS. od. 175. od. 165. 6d. Edinburgh, Jan. 30. 1787. Oat-meal, I s. bear-meal, 9d. Peafe-meal, 9 d. On the prefent ftate of ASTRONOMY IOS. Lord BUCHAN's letter to his learned correspondents 112. Account of an ELEPHANT 113. Account of a Boy poffeffed of remarkable talents for CALCULATION 114. PARLIAMENT. Mr Haftings 115. Sheriff of Renfrewshire ib. Commercial treaty ib. Obfervations on the Beauties of English LANDSCAPE 123. NEW BOOKS. Chalmers on the comparative strength of Britain 127. Lord Hailes's inquiry into the fecondary causes which Mr Gibbon has affigned for the rapid growth of Christianity 129. Horne Tooke's Diverfions of Purley 130. Character and Memoirs of Mr S. DYER 133. Pemarkable industry of FELONS fentenced to hard labour in the county of Oxford 136. Account of the WODYACKS 137•. Confiderations on the prefent State of Aftronomy-By M. de Lalande. T [From Memoires de L'Academie de Dijon.] HE great epochas of Aftronomy have been those of Hipparchus, 160 years before Chrift; of Copernicus, in the year 1545; and the obfervations made by Tycho-Braché at the end of the fame century, which led Kepler to his difcoveries; at the fame time that the invention of telescopes opened to Galileo a new field for obfervation. To the establishment of the French Academy of Sciences in 1666 we are indebted for the knowledge of the magnitude of our Globe; of the variation of the Pendulum; of the Micrometer; of the application of glaffes to the Quadrant; of the distances of the VOL.XLIX. Sun and of the Planets; of Refraction ; and, in fine, of the difcovery of Univer fal Attraction, published by Newton in 1687, which gave to Aftronomy a new face, and hath carried it to a degree of perfection which it was before thought incapable of. But this prefent century has not been deficient in aftronomical improvement. In the year 1705 Mr Halley firft predicted the return of a comet, which appeared in 1759; in 1728 Mr Bradley made the difcovery of the aberration of the ftars; in 1736 the voyages were undertaken for measuring a degree of the meridian which confirmed the idea of the earth's being flattened at the poles; and, laftly, the yoyages made to obferve the tranfits of Venus in the years 1761 and 1769, procured us an exact knowledge of the diftance and magnitude of all the planets. Pá So many admirable circumstances might preclude our prefent Aftronomers from the hopes of new difcoveries; yet we have feen, within thefe few years, a new heaven displayed; and, what is fingular, it is not to an Aftronomer that we owe the obligation. M. Herfchel, á German, born in 1738, and carried into England in the crowd of a Hanoverian regiment, did not then perceive that Nature had deftined him for fomething higher. His look, at that time, was not lofty: he taught mufic in a remote province; but he amafed himself by grind ing lenfes and polishing mirrors. tience and addrefs, qualities rarely united except in the German nation, confpired to procure him fuccefs; he was captivated with the progrefs he made, and perfevered, till he finifhed a telescope that magnified objects 2000 times; a de gree of perfection to which that inftrument had never before arrived, for the beft of thofe made by Short do not magnify above 500 times. With this telefcope he eagerly férutinized the skies; the universe enlarged itfelf to his view, and prefented to him a fpectacle of novelty and incredible magnificence. In the space of a few degrees he difcovered about 44,000 ftars; and if we estimate in proportion the number vifible by his telefcope over the whole firmament, we find them to amount to 75 millions. What an unbounded scope does this give to the human Imagination; and what an argument for the power and benignity of the Deity! Mr Herfchel was employed in confi. dering and numbering this multitude of objects, when, on the 13th of April 1781, his telescope being directed towards the feet of Gemini, he obferved a mall ftar which attracted his particular attention, as it feemed to differ from the reft. Though it refembled a ftar of the 6th or 7th magnitude, it had a more fteady light. Next day, he was aftonifhed to difcover that this little luminous point had changed its place; and, in a few days, he was convinced that it was a planet: he immediately gave notice of its difcovery to the aftronomers, who have never lince ceased to observe it with at tentivé curiofity. All the circumstances of its motion are determined, and many aftronomers have given tables of them. This planet of Herfchel was acciden tally obferved, on the 25th of September 1756, by Mayer; and before, on the 23d of December 1690, by Flamstead. They confidered it as a ffar of the 6th magnitude, the one placing it in Pifces, the o. ther in Taurus; and from thefe fortunate obfervations, already ancient, we are enabled to conclude, that the period of this planet's revolution is 83 years, and that its diftance is 650 millions of leagues: it is hardly visible by the naked eye. [vol. 45. p. 337.) Mr Herfchel has now brought his telescope to magnify 6000 times, and has fince difcovered 1250 of thofe whitish cloudy fpots that appear to the naked eye like the milky way. One hundred and three of these nebulæ had, for a century paft, been difcovered; but all of them feen through Herschel's 20 feet telescope, are nothing but a congeries of fmall stars. Thofe that he has lately difcovered are invifible by our ordinary glaffes. Some of them are of a fingular appearance, and he calls them Planetary Nebula,, because they have a well-defined difk like the planets, and have a pale uniform light, the nature of which is still unknown. He is at prefent engaged; in conftructing a telescope of 40 feet in length, and four in diameter; and, if be fucceeds, we shall have a new scene opened, and a new field for observations and discoveries in the regions of space. Herfchel has feen in the moon two peaks of mountains, formed almost before his eyes; there are in their neighbourhood certain currents, refembling thofe torrents of lava that flow from a volcano at the time of its greatest eruptions. This obfervation wasible in his confirmed by an actual eruption, very telescope of 9 feet; it is a fire or light like that of a star of the 4th magnitude feen by the naked eye, and it appeared on the obfcure part of the moon. This may help to explain the bbfervation of Ulloa, who, in the total eclipse of 1783, faw in the middle of the moon á luminous point, which he conjectured to be a perforation. The achromatic glaffes invented by Euler and Dolland, about the year 1758, are now brought to perfection. M. Bofcovitch, an Ex-Jefuit, one of the best geometricians of our age, has just publifhed at Baffano near Vehice, Mathe matical matical Memoirs, great part of which confifts of calculations for the dimensions of thefe glaffes. Inftruments for minute divifion are now alfo exceedingly improved. Mr Ramfden in England, and Mr Meignié at Paris, have invented machines of such nicety, that a mistake of the hundredth part of a line may be avoided. The quadrant of 8 feet radius, which Mr Meignié is preparing for the Royal Obfervatory, will be caft in one piece, and be eve ry way fitted for making obfervations with unparallelled accuracy. The aftronomical tables we make ufe of for the calculation and prediction of the places of the planets are the refult of the united labours of aftronomers, and the precision of thefe tables is a proper eftimate of our fuccefs. The error in thele tables does not amount to half a minute for the Sun, one minute for the Moon, Mercury, and Venus; two minutes for Mars, four for Jupiter, and twelve for Saturn. We may have an idea of the value of thefe quantities, by comparing them with the apparent magnitude of the Sun, and of the Moon, which is about thirty minutes to the naked eye. The inequality of Saturn arifes in part from the attraction of Jupiter; but I have perceived in his motion, for thirty years, a fenfible derangement, of which the cause is unknown. The theory of attraction employed by the celebrated Euler, and afterwards by Clairant and d'Alembert, has procured us the knowledge of thofe fmall inequa lities of the moon and the planets, which obfervations would never have difcover ed, particularly the inequality in the motion of the earth, which it is indif penfably neceffary to attend to in our calculations. The aftronomy of the fatellites of Jupiter, investigated for forty years by Meff. Wargentia and Mavaldi, with as much patience as fuccefs, will ftill require continued obfervations. The former is just dead, and the latter has been forced by age into retirement. The inequalities, however, of the third fatellite are ftill very imperfectly known, and the errors of our tables amount to four or five minutes. The inequalities arife from the attraction of the first, of the fecond, and of the fourth fatellites; but the theory of attraction, as well as obfervations have hitherto failed in difcovering thefe equations, or their amount; particular attention, however, is paid to these fa tellites in the Royal Obfervatory. The general catalogue of ftars is one of the molt effential articles in aftronomy. That of Flamstead, made near a bun dred years ago, contains about 5000 stars; but it is now too antiquated to be relied on. Thofe of de la Caille and Mayer, which are modern, contain only the Southern and Zodiacal ftars. The Northern ftars remain to be observed; and M. Dagelet undertook it with incredible courage and affiduity; he had already obferved 4000 ftars, when an important voyage, which I shall fhortly take notice of, fufpended his labours in this line. The variations in the places of the stars afford a vaft field for obfervation and difcovery. It is known that Arcturus, that fine ftar which is at the extremity of the tail of the Greater Bear, changes four minutes in a century; thus it alters its place near 80,000 leagues in a year. Similar alterations have been remarked in many ftars; but, to be acquainted with them all, each ftar must be often obferved, and at great intervals of time. The changes in the light of fome stars is an object more within the reach of the lovers of aftronomy. If churchmen were as curious as Father Anthelm of Dijon at the beginning of this century, we should foon have a lift of many fuch fars. Mr Goodrich of York, a gentleman who is deaf and dumb, has remarked several; for inftance, the ftar called Algol, or Head of Medufa, diminishes in fplendor every three days, fo much, that, from being of the fecond magnitude, it scarcely appears of the fourth. The fame thing happens to the ftar Cepheus. What aftonishing revolutions must happen in Nature, to produce fuch fudden lofs of light in globes of fire, that are probably three millions of miles in circumference! The phenomenon is equally incomprehenfible, whether we fuppofe thefe bodies to have a motion round their axis with one fide lefs luminous than the other, or that fome large planet interceps it in part from our fight. Continued obfervations on the spots of the Sun have convinced me that these fpots are formed in determinate points of the folar globe; fo that, after having difappeared for years, they are feen again in the very fame place. But the Sun's motion round his axis, to which I have been long particularly attentive, has P 2 given |