"P. xxxiii. The time, within which the cause of aberration occurred to Bradley, is still further narrowed by the following extracts from the minutes of 1728, Nov 14: "Dr. Halley took occasion to speak concerning the late improvements in astronomy made from the new discovery of an annual motion of the fixed stars. ...his colleague, the Rev. Mr. Bradley, resolved to fix up another and more accurate instrument... and after fifteen months almost daily observations on fifteen different stars, has at length discovered not only the laws of the motions, but also the true and manifest cause of them." The instrument having been set up at Wansted on the 17th Aug. 1727, the fifteen months would only have been expiring, and from the expressions which are used, it is clear that the completion of the discovery was then quite recent. Halley, at the end of his report, "desired that a proper notice might be taken of this new discovery of Mr. Bradley, to prevent any other person from laying claim to it before he had sufficient time to prepare and adjust his observations and reflexions on this subject for the public." After the communication was finished, Halley concludes his report by saying, that Bradley was sufficiently convinced of his having discovered the true cause of the phenomena, since he was "able to foretell at any time, the situation of a star being given, how much the variation of it will amount unto, and that with so much exactness, that there does not remain any sensible part unaccounted for, which can be supposed to arise from parallax.—The President proposed that thanks might be returned to Mr. Bradley for the great care and pains which he has taken in his application to this subject, and likewise that it would be proper to advise Mr. Bradley, and hasten him to the publication of his thoughts, as soon as conveniently may be.""