sir CHRISTOPHER WREN, knt.

219

fame Tract mention’d, ’tis strange they should not have been apply’d to theIcte of so beneficial an Instrument sooner, which I do not find they were,fill after this Observation at Oxford .

Mr. Hook supposes that Reita was the first that made Use of convex Eye philos E*pt rGlasses, taking in a larger Area than the concave ones used before, and Derl ’‘ am » •that he invented the Rete or Mcnsurator , placed in the common Focus of**' 2?2-the Glasses ; which Sir Chrijlopher W--en perfeBed ; and invented the angularInstrument consisting of two ‘Telescopes join’d at a moveable Joint, so as to take•Angles by two Observers, to a Quadrant.

The third Thing Monf. Casini [in his Original and Progress of Astronomy} PLiiof. Exper.Unjustly lays Claim to, in the Behalf of the Royal Academy of Paris , isv<-ri,am,the finding a Standard for an universal Measure by the Length of a Pcndu-' 39vibrating a certain Time. This was srjl invented and tried by Sir Chri-fiopher Wren , some Years before the Beginning of the Society.

The fourth Thing Monf. Casini instances in, as of Right to be aferib’dto the Royal Academy of Paris, is the Improvement of Telescopes both forlength and Goodness; which was first performed here, by Sir Paul Neile ,

Sir Christopher Wren, and Dr. Goddard, who instructed and employed Mr.sieves in the manual Operation ; and by that Means it was carried to thePerfection of making Object-Glasses of sixty and seventy Foot long, verygood, before any Mention was made of such being made in France. Somejuch Attempts indeed, had been made in Italy by Divini, and Campari! ■,hut upon the comparing one of the best of them, brought hither by Monf.

A Tonconys, I found that a Telescope I had then by me of Mr. Rieves’ s making,of the fame Length with the Italian, was full as good, if not better 3 whichMr. Monconys acknowledged.

In Cœlestial Observations we have far exceeded all the Antients, even the Hookv mlChaldeans, and Egyptians themselves; whose vast Plains, high Towers, andcrograxiiis.Aear Air, did not give them so great Advantages over us, as we have over them Pr ‘l aci -hy our Glases. By the Help of which, they have been much out-done by the^mous Galileo, Hevelius, Zulichem, and our own Countrymen, Mr. Rook ,and Dr. Wren, &c.

APPENDIX to PART I.

SECT. I.

Extract of a Letter from Mr. Hook, May 4, 1665, in Reference .to the Comet , Anno 1664 ; and Dr. Wrens Hypothesis ofComets laid before the Royal Society .

NUMB. I.

To Dr. Wren at Oxford. . .

Sir, ' '

Hope you received the Globe and Observations which I sent you; you^ had had them much sooner, but in Truth I could not get the Copy ofy°ur Hypotbests, though the Amanuensis was ordered by the Society to havej-h it ready above a Week before. Those Observations of my own making,have not yet had Time to adjust so well as I desired ; for the Sun came

upon

I