no case combined with the claw-shaped form of the
extremities, frequent in many of the carniverous animals, and necessary
to some of them for the purpose of seizing their prey] it can only be
regarded as a deception, without the accompaniment of wit.

FORGING differs from hoaxing, inasmuch as in the latter the deceit is
intended to last for a time, and then be discovered, to the ridicule of
those who have credited it; whereas the forger is one who, wishing to
acquire a reputation for science, records observations which he has
never made. This is sometimes accomplished in astronomical observations
by calculating the time and circumstances of the phenomenon from tables.
The observations of the second comet of 1784, which was only seen by
the Chevalier D'Angos, were long suspected to be a forgery, and were at
length proved to be so by the calculations and reasonings of Encke. The
pretended observations did not accord amongst each other in giving any
possible orbit. But M. Encke detected an orbit, belonging to some of
the observations, from which he found that all the rest might be almost
precisely deduced, provided a mistake of a unity in the index of the
logarithm of the radius vector were supposed to have been made in all
the rest of the calculations. ZACH. CORR. ASTRON. Tom. IV. p. 456.

Fortunately instances of the occurrence of forging are rare.

TRIMMING consists in clipping off little bits here and there from those
observations which differ most in excess from the mean, and in
sticking them on to those which are too small; a species of "equitable
adjustment," as a radical would term it, which cannot be admitted in
science.

This fraud is not perhaps so injurious (except to the character of the
trimmer) as cooking, which the next paragraph will teach, The reason of
this is, that the AVERAGE given by the observations of the trimmer is
the same, whether they are trimmed or untrimmed. His object is to gain a
reputation for extreme accuracy in making observations; but from respect
for truth, or from a prudent foresight, he does not distort the position
of the fact he gets from nature, and it is usually difficult to detect
him. He has more sense or less adventure than the Cook.

OF COOKING. This is an art of various forms, the object of which is to
give to ordinary observations the appearance and character of those of
the highest degree of accuracy.

One of its numerous processes is to make multitudes of observations