The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

A couple of changes had to be made in the interest of efficiency. The view taken of one of these may not only interest the reader, but give him an idea of what people used to think of government service before the era of civil service reform. The proof-reader was excellent in every respect except that of ability to perform his duty. He occupied a high position, I believe, in the Grand Army of the Republic, and thus wielded a good deal of influence. When his case was appealed to the Secretary of the Navy, apellant was referred to me. I stated the trouble to counsel,—he did not appear to see figures, or be able to distinguish whether they were right or wrong, and therefore was useless as a proof-reader.

"It is not his fault," was the reply; "he nearly lost his eyesight in the civil war, and it is hard for him to see at all." In the view of counsel that explanation ought to have settled the case in his favor. It did not, however, but "influence" had no difficulty in making itself more successful in another field.

Among my first steps was that of getting a new office in the top of the Corcoran Building, then just completed. It was large and roomy enough to allow quite a number of assistants around me.

Much of the work was then, as now, done by the piece, or annual job, the computers on it very generally working at their homes. This offers many advantages for such work; the government is not burdened with an officer who must be paid his regular monthly salary whether he supplies his work or not, and whom it is unpleasant and difficult to get rid of in case of sickness or breakdown of any sort. The work is paid for when furnished, and the main trouble of administration saved. It is only necessary to have a brief report from time to time, showing that the work is actually going on.

I began with a careful examination of the relation of prices to work, making an estimate of the time probably necessary to do each job. Among the performers of the annual work were several able and eminent professors at various universities and schools. I found that they were being paid at pretty high professional prices. I recall with great satisfaction that I was able to reduce the prices and, step by step, concentrate all the work in Washington, without detriment to the pleasant relations I sustained with these men, some of them old and intimate friends. These economies went on increasing year by year, and every dollar that was saved went into the work of making the tables necessary for the future use of the Ephemeris.

The programme of work which I mapped out, involved, as one branch of it, a discussion of all the observations of value on the positions of the sun, moon, and planets, and incidentally, on the bright fixed stars, made at the leading observatories of the world since 1750. One might almost say it involved repeating, in a space of ten or fifteen years, an important part of the world's work in astronomy for more than a century past. Of course, this was impossible to carry out in all its completeness. In most cases what I was obliged practically to confine myself to was a correction of the reductions already made and published. Still, the job was one with which I do not think any astronomical one ever before attempted by a single person could compare in extent. The number of meridian observations on the sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars alone numbered 62,030. They were made at the observatories of Greenwich, Paris, Königsberg, Pulkowa, Cape of Good Hope,—but I need not go over the entire list, which numbers thirteen.

The other branches of the work were such as I have already described,—the computation of the formulæ for the perturbation of the various planets by each other. As I am writing for the general reader, I need not go into any further technical description of this work than I have already done. Something about my assistants may, however, be of interest. They were too numerous to be all recalled individually. In fact, when the work was at its height, the office was, in the number of its scientific employees, nearly on an equality with the three or four greatest observatories of the world.

One of my experiences has affected my judgment on the general morale of the educated young men of our country. In not a single case did I ever have an assistant who tried to shirk his duty to the government, nor do I think there was more than a single case in which one tried to contest my judgment of his own merits, or those of his work. I adopted the principle that promotion should be by merit rather than by seniority, and my decisions on that matter were always accepted without complaint. I recall two men who voluntarily resigned when they found that, through failure of health or strength, they were unable to properly go on with their work. In frankness I must admit that there was one case in which I had a very disagreeable contest in getting rid of a learned gentleman whose practical powers were so far inferior to his theoretical knowledge that he was almost useless in the office. He made the fiercest and most determined fight in which I was ever engaged, but I must, in justice to all concerned, say that his defect was not in will to do his work but in the requisite power. Officially I was not without fault, because, in the press of matters requiring my attention, I had entrusted too much to him, and did not discover his deficiencies until some mischief had been done.

Perhaps the most eminent and interesting man associated with me during this period was Mr. George W. Hill, who will easily rank as the greatest master of mathematical astronomy during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The only defect of his make-up of which I have reason to complain is the lack of the teaching faculty. Had this been developed in him, I could have learned very much from him that would have been to my advantage. In saying this I have one especial point in mind. In beginning my studies in celestial mechanics, I lacked the guidance of some one conversant with the subject on its practical side. Two systems of computing planetary perturbations had been used, one by Leverrier, while the other was invented by Hansen. The former method was, in principle, of great simplicity, while the latter seemed to be very complex and even clumsy. I naturally supposed that the man who computed the direction of the planet Neptune before its existence was known, must be a master of the whole subject, and followed the lines he indicated. I gradually discovered the contrary, and introduced modified methods, but did not entirely break away from the old trammels. Hill had never been bound by them, and used Hansen's method from the beginning. Had he given me a few demonstrations of its advantages, I should have been saved a great deal of time and labor.

The part assigned to Hill was about the most difficult in the whole work,—the theory of Jupiter and Saturn. Owing to the great mass of these "giant planets," the inequalities of their motion, especially in the case of Saturn, affected by the attraction of Jupiter, is greater than in the case of the other planets. Leverrier failed to attain the necessary exactness in his investigation of their motion. Hill had done some work on the subject at his home in Nyack Turnpike before I took charge of the office. He now moved to Washington, and seriously began the complicated numerical calculations which his task involved. I urged that he should accept the assistance of less skilled computers; but he declined it from a desire to do the entire work himself. Computers to make the duplicate computations necessary to guard against accidental numerical errors on his part were all that he required. He labored almost incessantly for about ten years, when he handed in the manuscript of what now forms Volume IV. of the "Astronomical Papers."