To make my meaning better understood, I have selected into the last column all those years that agree near to each other, and the result from thence comes out 1744, the age of the astronomical tables: but to show how far the errors in the years in the other column would affect this result, I have cast them up as they stand, and they give then 1701 years. The notion of the reviewer is here shown in the item of 1948, at the beginning of the column under A, in order to show his error; for that item is balanced by others on the contrary side:— but is not the idea of using an erroneous result, when we have so many others to choose from, truly ridiculous? Surely the astronomer must be at liberty to employ those results he finds most correct, and not those that appear erroneous. The reviewer's ideas in this respect are totally unscientific, and rest upon nothing but sophistry, misrepresentation, and deception.
No result can be drawn when the motions are the same by both tables, as in the moon's apogee and node, the node of Venus, Mars and his aphelion; for the errors neither increase, nor diminish. The tables here given as an example to the rule, are those of La Lande, first or second edition; but the title-page and date are wanting. The reason why the mean result makes the tables older than the epoch, which I believe was 1770, is, that the
