man, and the courts of justice are his courts.

He is alfo the natural defender of the kingdoms committed to his charge; therefore of himself alone he may declare war, and again make peace with the enemies of this land; and the government of the armies by fea and land are also vested in him.

We are all bound to affift him, in the execution of his high commands, tending to the benefit of the nation. He is our common father, our ruler, and our preserver.

And the power he has is good and natural, as without it we should be ftriving for power among ourfelves.

But our obedience unto him is to be a rational obedience. We must not difobey the conftitutional laws of the realm to execute his commands, or the commands of his officers under him.

Our king is not a king of flaves, but a king of freemen.

All power is granted him for the prefervation of his realms, and of his fubjects: but the dictates of his own will are not as the laws of the land.

Among the nations there are who bow their necks to princes as unto God: but we acknowledge not a right in our king, to difpofe of the fortunes and lives of his fubjects, at his pleasure.

Kings are but men, and their power cometh from men. With this power a good king is content; but wicked rulers can never be fatisfied.

The fecond part of the State is the body of Princes and Nobles of the Realm.

These are the inheritors of the great and peculiar honours of their ancestors; and the conftitution diftinguisheth them from the common fubjects.

They conftitute one of the parts of the legislative power, being the guardians of their own pre-eminent

privileges, the defenders of the royal prerogatives of the fovereign, and the arbiters between prince and people.

They ftand up for the dignity of the throne, from whence they derive their own luftre, and nevertheless are a barrier for the people from any oppreffive power of its reprefentative.

The people themselves are the 3d part of the State, as they are rereprefented by the Members of the House of Commons.

Without the confent of the Commons no monies whatsoever can be raised on the fubject, whofe property is facred.

They are the natural guardians of the liberty of the people, they keep a watch on the fovereign, and check every measure taken by him, or his minifters, which tends to the oppreffion of the fubject.

They furnish to the exigencies of the State, by ordering the levies of money on themselves, or the people they reprefent; and if they find their property is misapplied, they have a right to call upon the king's offi cers to account for it; being, in that refpect, a watch upon them, for their faithfully discharging their duty to their mafter.

Thus do these three parts form the State of the Realm of England; and are the firm fupport of each other.

'Tis the intereft of the King to preferve the Nobles their privileges, and to the people their free-born inheritance.

The Nobles muft preferve the monarch, without whom all their dignity were as nothing, and they must join with the people in curbing any ambitious attempts of the king or his officers.

The people muft preferve the king as their head, and as the center of unity. They muft cherish the Nobles fellow guardians of their liberties.

And this state of King, Lords, and
Commons,

Commons, is the legislative power of the land. No laws can be establifhed without the joint confent of thefe three parts.

The power of the one part, is limited by the power of the other two parts; but their united power is without controul.

Howbeit, it behoveth every subject to be attentive to the good order of the constitution, as infallibility refideth not among men.

And for this reafon, every Englishman ought to be, in an especial manner, prudent and wary in the choice of his reprefentative, as the only fure means to avoid falling under the grievous burthen of arbitrary power.

Such is the form of our most excellent government, our conftitution in church and state.

a fkrew micrometer, of which the French affert M. Picard to have been the inventor; though it has been proved very fatisfactory, by the late Dr. Derham and others, that the invention was our countryman's, Mr. Gascoin.

About the fame time, Gabriel Mouton, by the time of the tranất of the fun's diameter over an hororary circle, found the apogeal diameter to be 31 m. 31 one half í. He tranfmitted the folar image thro' a telelcope of two convex glaffes, upon a fcene perpendicular to the axe of the telescope, whereon a line, reprefenting an hororary circle, was drawn; and he measured the time by a fimple pendulum, the temporary value of whose vibrations he had previously determined.

Mr. Flamfteed next measured the fame apogeal diameter, by the fkrew inftrument of Mr. Gafcoin, prefented to him by Mr. Townley, which he therefore called Townley's micrometer: His determination was between 31 m. 43 f. and 31 m. 47: in which he was followed by almost all aftronomers, except Meirs. de Lonville and Caffini, who both made it a very fmall matter lefs.

So then there is a difference of about ten feconds between the obfervations of the beft aftronomers, or about an 19oth part of the whole. The fource of which, according to M. le Gentil, lies partly in the great difficulty of meafuring the diameter by the time of the tranfit, and partly to the optical illufion, which in fome cafes may arise from the bad quality of the coloured glaffes, made use of for defending the eye from the too great fplendor of the fun's rays; to which may be added a tremulous motion, fometimes very remarkable, in the fun's image viewed in a telescope, and which renders it abfolutely impoffible to meafure his diameter exactly.

M. le Gentil prefers plain glaf fes tinged with the fmoke of a lamp,

ro

to coloured ones; yet thinks them not quite exempt from certain defects; and therefore, to abate the too great vivacity of the light, without producing any alteration in the diameter, he recommends, from his own reiterated experience, a network of fpiders webs, to be placed before the object glafs of the telefcope: or, if you pleafe, between the eye-glafs and the eye; and having himself put this method in practice, with a good micrometer, in an eight foot tube, he measured the fun's apogeal diameter 31' 33" 50, which he relies upon as juft, and then deduces, from the nature of the ellipfe, an easy rule for com=puting the fun's diameter for any given time, to a fingle fecond, which is as follows:

Take from good aftronomical tables the fun's true anomaly, agreeably to the time proposed, and add the cofine thereof to the conftant logarithm 3,2293778, the fum will be the log. of a number, which taken from 100,000 in the first and fourth quadrant of true anomaly, and added to the fame in the second and third quadrant, the log. of the fum or difference diminished by another conftant log. 0,0167085 will leave the log. of the fun's apparent femi-diameter, in feconds and centeffimals of a fecond.

XXIV, On the digeftion of birds. Memoir the fecond. In what manner it is performed in the ftomachs of birds

of prey.

XXV. A reply to a memoir of M de Maupertuis, on the principle of the leaft action, inferted in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin for the year 1752. By the Chevalier d'Arcy.

This paper, being entirely of a metaphyfical and controverfial nature, will be beft read at large.

If instead of an eight-foot refracting

telescope, M. le Gentil had used one of a longer focus, he would have found the diameter lefs; and ftill lefs with a reflector, than even with the longest refractor; of

which more on another occafion.

XXVI. A memoire on the elements of the fun's theory, by way of fupplement to two former papers on the fame fubject, in the volume, for the year 1750, (Articles II. and XII.). By the Abbe de Caille:

This gentleman having made a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and being there in condition of making exacter obfervations of the fun than he had done before; after all proper reductions, he determines for the first of Jan. 1752, in the meridian of Paris, the place of the fun's apogee 3 f. 8. deg. 45 m. 13 f. of his mean longitude 9s. 10 d. 31 m. 16 f. 6. his excentricity 0,0168101, and his greatest equation 1 d. 55 m. 351

I

XXVII. An addition to the memoire (Article X.) wherein Canada is compared to Switzerland, with refpect to its minerals.

A thing remarkably fingular in the natural hiftory of America, is, the abundance of excellent load-ftone, with very long fibres, found in the northern parts thereof. In all other refpects the foflils of Canada are ranged precifely in the fame order as in Switzerland; a confirmation of M. Guitard's opinion. Phænomena are but too frequently found to contradict fyftems, because the latter, for the most part, are the offspring of the imagination; but when the true arrangement of nature is one happily hit upon, experiments and obfervations are ever ready to yield teftimony to the truth.

XXVIII. A table of the apparent right afcenfions and declinations of the fouthern ftars beyond the tropic of Capricorn, obferved at the Cape of Good Hope, by the Abbe de la Caille.

Thofe, which are pretty confiderable for their number, are marked down, each as found on the particular day of obfervation (annexed in the last column) without being reduced to any one general æra.

XXIX. The conftruction of tables of the horary motion of the moon. By M. Clairaut.

In

In M. Clairaut's funar tables already published, there is nothing relating to the moon's horary motion. It is true, it may be deduced from thofe tables, but then the operation will be tedious. That defect is here fupplied by an easy method, which is applica ble to almoft any theory of the moon, as well as his own.

XXX. Meteorological obfervations made at the Royal Obfervatory in the year 1752. By M. de Fouchy. Quantity of rain.

Inches Lines.

January I 6; July

little or nothing to do with their effects, as hot or warm baths; and that the fprings of Balaruc, fo celebrated for their internal efficacy, have no advantage in bathing, beyond what may be procured from any common water of a like degree of heat.

Old Cafiles ufelefs and burthenfome to the Nation.

GENTLEMEN,

1 11 August

I

February

March

April

May June

I

4 63

I

I 4 September o

O 7

October O 3; November 1 o 2 22 December 2

7

In all, 18 inches, 163 lines. The greatest cold on Reaumur's thermometer was the 16th of January, when it ftood at 5 below freezing. The greatest heat, June 29, when it was at 27 above freezing.

The greatest height of the barometer, 28 inches, 4 lines, October 31, with a north-east wind. The loweft 27 inches 1 line, June 27, with a fouthweft wind.

June the 15 and 16, the declination of the magnetic needle was 17 deg. 15 m. to the north-west.

XXXI. Obfervations on the waters of Balarac, by Dr. le Roy, of the Royal Society of Montpellier.

Former inquiries into the nature and conftituent principles of thefe waters had discovered, that they held fomething of a marine falt, and turned the juice of Tournefol red; a mark of a cidity. Dr. le Roy has found more over, that they contain a neutral falt, whole bafis is an obforbent earth; that they are not at all impregnated with iron; and that their acid is of the volatile fulphureous kind. In the purfuit of his enquiries he endeavours to prove, that the qualities of waters, confidered as internal medicines, have

this kingdom's ftrength and honour, I took a trip one morning to the Ifle of Wight. Curiofity then led me to view the caftle of Carisbrook, where a royal perfonage was his own prisoner, if I may use that expreflion. I found, indeed, the fituation truly royal, tho' the building is almost entirely in ruins.-Thinks I, fure this can never be the place, where fo many different officers have fuch handsome falaries,-there must be another-I'll afk-I did and was told it was the very fame-I then pulled out my memorandum book of guards, garrifons, penfions, &c. (made for my own private amufement and inftruction) and there I found that this heap of ftones could not, in this œconomical country, be kept in an heap, without the expence of full 2000l. a year.

There must be a governor, lieut. governor, fort-major, furgeon, gunners without number, an engineer or two, &c. &c. and upon knocking very hard at the old cracked door, to fee if I could find any hofpitality in fo wealthy a place; the two officers I found on duty were a kind of porter, who fold bread and cheese, and ale; and an old jack-afs drawing water from a deep well. I often afked, where all the gentlemen lived, who had falaries fufficient to keep noble tables for the reception of travellers; and I was answered, they are all in London.-Some of them are p—t men here, and we feldom fee them

but