crometrical observations made by Mr. Main during the disappearance of the ring, shows that the form of Saturn without his ring is a perfect ellipse of considerable ellipticity. M. Lassell and Mr. Dawes have further made such observations upon the ring, that they became perfectly satisfied of its division into two distinct annuli, having obtained a perfectly clear and satisfactory view of the division. But a new and inexplicable phenomenon was added to the other marvels of this planet at the end of the year 1850. It was announced that Mr. Bond of Cambridge, U. S., had, on the night of the 15th November, discovered a third ring interior to the two others, and therefore at no great distance from the body of the planet. On the 3rd December, the Rev. Mr. Dawes and M. Lassell, examining Saturn at the private observatory of the former at Wateringbury, perceived phenomena analogous to those noticed by Mr. Bond; it appeared as though something like a crape veil covered a part of the sky within the inner (i. e. the second) ring, separated by a darker ill-defined boundary line from the solid body of the ring. Whether this be an innermost ring, or what other explanation may be assigned to it, these appearances are especially remarkable, because, in 1791 and the following years, Sir W. Herschel paid particular attention to the phenomena of this planet, and his observations amount to a negation of these of 1850 being then presented. It has been conjectured that they may be due to the total absence of sunshine from the southern side of the ring for the last fifteen years; a condition from which it has just emerged.

A transit of Mercury over the Sun's disc, Nov. 8-9, 1848, was very carefully observed at most of the observatories, and afforded some curious phenomena. The passage of Jupiter's fourth satellite over the disc of its primary, in like manner, called general attention, and the somewhat singular phenomena which were exhibited were carefully noted.

A total eclipse of the Moon on the night of the 19th March, 1849, was accompanied by circumstances which do not appear to have been heretofore remarked certainly not to the same degree. At Bruges, during the whole period of the adumbration, the shaded surface presented a degree of light quite unusual; it was of a deep red or copper colour, and even during the period of total eclipse the light and dark places on the face of the moon could be almost as well made out as in an ordinary dull moonlight night. The British Consul at Ghent, who was not aware that an eclipse was expected, wrote for an explanation of the blood-red colour of the moon at 9 o'clock. In England this appearance was less marked. Professor Challis, at Cambridge, describes it as “a faint ruddy light spread over the eclipsed portion of the moon's disc." Mr. Hind, at the South Villa observatory, says, "nothing unusual was remarked; the shadow had a greenish tinge." At Killaloe the colour "was much like that of tarnished yellow." Mr. Walkley, who observed the eclipse at Collumpton, says, "that the appearances were as usual until twenty minutes to 9 o'clock; at that period, and for the space of the next hour, instead of an eclipse, the whole phase of that body became very quickly and most beau

tifully illuminated, and assumed the appearance of the glowing heat of fire from the furnace, rather tinged with a deep red. The whole disc of the moon was as perfect with light as if there had been no eclipse whatever." During the period of the eclipse there was a bright aurora in the north, and at Bruges a most magnificent meteor descended obliquely towards the horizon about the time of the central eclipse.

Some very valuable treatises on Astronomical Science have been published within the last three years. Those which appear periodically and officially, it is not here necessary to notice; they all contain valuable contributions to the stores of the science. The reductions of the Greenwich lunar observations from 1750 to 1830 have been completed and published, a work, which, for magnitude, as directed to a special object, and for accuracy, has scarcely ever been equalled. The sixteenth volume of Cambridge Observations, containing the meridian observations of 1844 and 1845, and a volume of the Edinburgh Astronomical Observations, that for 1843, have been published. The observations of the late Mr. Fallows, made at the Cape of Good Hope in the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, have been printed at the expense of the Government. They were placed in the hands of the Astronomer Royal for reduction and exhibition in proper form; the work thus ably edited is regarded as the foundation of astronomy in the southern hemisphere.

Some additions of great importance in the instruments and mechanical appliances of the science are worthy of note. At the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, a transit

circle, with a telescope of eight inches aperture, has been substituted for the transit instrument and mural circle. For this operation no ordinary science, care, and mechanical ingenuity were required. An altitude and azimuth instrument, of remarkably massive and firm construction, has also been mounted at the Royal Observatory for the express purpose of observing the moon on every day on which it is at any time visible. At the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, an heliometer, by Repsold, has been erected in a building constructed purposely to receive it. The diameter of the dividing objectglass is 7 inches, with a focal length of 10 feet 4 inches. The hour-circle and declination-circle are each 2 feet in diameter.

A new observatory has been founded and built at Liverpool. This building is constructed and furnished with instruments chiefly by the liberality of the Town. Council; besides a convenient house for the Astronomer, it contains a transit-room, an equatorial-room with a revolving dome, a chronometer-room, and a computing-room. The transit instrument has a telescope of 5 feet focus and 4 inches aperture; a transit clock and a mean-time clock by Molineux. The equatorial is a very fine instrument; the object-glass by Merz, of Munich, is 8 French inches in aperture, and about 12 feet in focal length. The clock-work is of most ingenious construction, having water for its motive power. Mr. Hartnup is appointed the first Director.

The most gigantic instrument of the present day, and that by which the period will perhaps be most distinguished to future ages

is Lord Rosse's 6-feet reflector. Some defects in the mounting of the mirror have been remedied, and this wonderful example of the love of science will now come into operation.

A very remarkable example of the connection of the sciences with each other, or at least of the manner in which each may be made available for the purposes of the other, is exhibited in America by

the application of the electric telegraph to the determination of differences of terrestrial longitude. By means of this wonderful instrument, the differences of the longitudes of the cities of Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg, have been not only observed but recorded.

The same instrument has also been most successfully applied to observing and recording transits.

Τ

IT is superfluous to do more than remind the reader that the great object proposed by Columbus, both to himself and to the sovereigns to whom he offered his plans, was the opening of a passage to the Indies by a voyage over the sea to the westward; and that in the course of his navigation he reached the shores of the New World. The occupation of the islands and main of central and southern America by the Spaniards and Portuguese, precluded the other nations of Europe from following this course, and drove them to the north, where the discovery of the extensive lands, bays, and gulfs of North America rewarded their adventure, and suggested the noble idea that by reaching the northern extremity of the land, and circumnavigating the coasts, a northwestern passage to the Indies might be found, which should lay open the fabulous wealth of those regions to the commercial states of Europe. This notion was eagerly adopted, and produced a race of intrepid commanders and seamen, who underwent incredible hardships and dangers in the frozen seas to which their adventures led them, and was probably the cause of the great advance the modern nations have made in all that belongs to navigation. The dangers and losses which were incurred

in these voyages, and the failure

in which they necessarily ended, would probably have put a stop to further undertakings, had it not happened that our merchant adventurers discovered that these ungenial regions were productive of valuable merchandise in oils, furs, and teeth, which repaid their outfit, and incited to new attempts. Thus incessant and daring voyages were made by merchants and captains, who combined traffic with exploration, and our knowledge of those parts of the earth was enlarged by the discoveries of Hudson, Davis, Baffin, and other intrepid navigators. Nevertheless the one great prominent object of the recorded voyages to the north was undoubtedly the discovery of a north-west passage to the Indies; the motive which inspired Cabot and his self-seeking master, and the gallant English commanders who have for three centuries persevered in the attempt;-in our times, indeed, the commercial view has disappeared from the evident inutility of such a passage should it be found to exist, and the search is persevered in for the purpose of solving a geographical problem and for scientific purposes, and also from a dogged resolution to carry through an undertaking which has become associated with English enterprise.

Many very fearful catastrophes have marked this course of exploration, without abating the desire of knowledge or the zeal of navigators. Of these, one of the best known, from the romantic circumstances attending it, is the destruction of the brave Sir Hugh Willoughby and all his crew, in the reign of Edward VI. This commander, with Richard Chancellor as his "pilot-major," set sail from Greenwich on the 20th May, 1553. His departure was a public spectacle, and he commenced his voyage amidst the greetings of the Royal Court at the palace of Greenwich where the youthful monarch was lying on his death-bed. His squadron consisted of three vessels; one of these commanded by Chancellor parted from the Admiral in a gale off the North Cape; the two remaining vessels pushed on until they reached Nova Zembla, but being there foiled in their endeavour to get further north, they turned their course along the desolate shores of Russian Lapland, and took shelter in the mouth of the Arzina, near Kegor, from whence parties were sent out to explore the country, but returned "without finding any people or any similitude of habitation." These were the last words in Sir Hugh Willoughby's Journal, which was found lying beside the frozen corpse of the Admiral, by some Russian fishermen who landed on the coast two years afterwards. The whole crew had perished, by the severity of the cold, to the number of seventy, but their stiffened corpses were collected, and, with the ships, which were found uninjured, were sent to England; there, however, they were destined never to arrive, for on the passage "they sunk with their

dead, and them also that brought them." Chancellor's voyage was as singularly successful as his Admiral's was disastrous. He pursued his course "towards that unknowen part of the world, and sailed so farre, that he came at last to the place where he found no night at all, but a continuall light and brightnesse of the sunne shining clearly upon the huge and mightie

sea.

And having the benefite of this perpetuall light for certaine dayes, at the length it pleased God to bring them into a certaine great bay, which was one hundedth miles or thereabout over." This great bay was the White Sea, and by this bold adventure the great Empire of Russia became known to civilized Europe.

Thirty years afterwards Sir Humphrey Gilbert (half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh) perished with his crew by the foundering of his ships off the coasts of Newfoundland. In 1619 Munk, a Danish navigator, penetrated into Chesterfield Inlet, where he was frozen in; his men perished fast by the scurvy; gradually their strength failed, to the extent that they could no longer kill the ducks, geese, and partridges which abounded around them; famine and disease speedily did their work, and when Munk, who had remained in his hut four days without food, at length had resolution to crawl out, he found that out of a crew of sixty-four men, two alone survived! These three escaped after enduring incredible hardships. In 1719 the Hudson's Bay Company fitted out an expedition consisting of a ship and a sloop, under the general command of Mr. Knight, a civil officer. The issue was utterly disastrous-the whole company perished fearfully; after the lapse of