Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/115

 This presents a very different view of the latitudes as determined by the small repeating circle, from that in Captain Sabine's book; and confining ourselves still to Maranham, where the latitudes "were obtained, with especial regard to every circumstance by which their accuracy might be affected," and where "a more than usual attention was bestowed," it appears, that if we take Captain Sabine's own test, namely, "the differences of the partial results from the mean at each station," the deviations become nearly ten times as large as they were before; a circumstance which might be expected to have some influence in the decision of the question.

There is, however, another light in which it is impossible to avoid looking at this singular oversight. The second column of the table of latitudes must now be considered the true one, as that which really resulted from the observations. Now, on examining the column of true latitudes, the differences between the different sets of observations is so considerable as naturally to excite some fear of latent error, more especially as nearly the greatest discordance arises from the same star, α Lyræ, observed after an interval of only three days. It becomes interesting to every person engaged in making astronomical