n
verified." Subjoined to the original observations are printed these
verifications in heavy-faced type.

In conducting the search, the plans were several times varied in slight
detail, generally because experience with the work enabled me to make
improvements in method. Usually, I prepared every few days a new zone
chart of the region over which I was about to search; and these charts
while containing memoranda of all the instrumental data which could be
prepared beforehand, were likewise so adjusted with reference to the
opposition-time of the planet as to avoid, if possible, its stationary
point. The same thing, too, was kept in mind in selecting the times of
subsequent observation. Notwithstanding this precaution, however, it
would be well if some observer who has a large telescope should now
re-examine the positions of these objects.

Researches in faint nebulae and nebulous stars appearing likely to
constitute a separate and interesting branch of the astronomy of the
future, it has seemed to me that the astronomers engaged in this work may
like to make a careful examination of some of the stars entered in my
observing book under the category of "suspected objects." The method I
adopted of insuring re-observation of these objects was by the
determination, not of their absolute, but only of their relative,
positions, through the agency of the larger "finder" of the great
telescope. This has an aperture of five inches, a power of thirty
diameters, and a field of view of seventy-eight minutes of arc. Two
diagrams were usually drawn in the book for each of these objects, the
one showing the relation of adjacent objects in the great telescope, and
the other the configuration of the more conspicuous objects in the field
of view of the finder. Adjacent to these "finder" diagrams are the
settings--to the nearest minute of arc in declination, and of time in
right ascension--as read from the large finding-circles, divided in black
and white. The field of view of the finder is crossed by two pairs of
hairlines, making a square of about twelve minutes on a side by their
intersection at the center. The diagrams in all cases represent the
objects as seen with an inverting eye-piece. As the adjustment of the
finder was occasionally verified, as well as the readings of the large
circles, there should be no trouble in identifying any of these objects,
notwithstanding the fact that no estimates of absolute magnitude were
recorded.