zz8 OF THE CONSTELLATIONS, AND THE

letter, that can be seen by the naked eye in thewhole visible hemisphere, is not above a thou-sand. Hipparchus, from his own observations,and those of the ancients that preceded him, in-serted in his catalogue only 1022, annexing toeach of them the latitude and longitude whichthey had at that time. Ptolemy added four tothis number; and many others were afterwardsdiscovered by different astronomers, who ap-plied themselves to this subject. But of all thecatalogues of the stars which have hitherto beenmade, that which is given by Flamsteed, in hisHistoria Cœlestis, is the most complete. Thenumber of stars inserted in this catalogue is about3000; which number has been since augmentedto near 5000, by Dr. Halley, Monf. de la Caille,Mons. le Monnier, and others; and from theaccuracy of their observations, there is scarcelya star to be seen in the heavens, whose place andsituation is not better known than that of mostcities and towns upon the earth.

And in order that the memory may not beburthened with a multiplicity of names, astro-nomers mark the stars of every constellationwith a letter of the Greelc alphabet; denotingthose that are the most conspicuous by «, thenext by (3, and so on in succession; by whichmeans they can be spoken of with as muchease as if each had a separate name. This wasthe invention of John Bayer, a native of Augf*4 burg,