The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

Ultimately the attack led to a result which may appear curious to the future astronomer. He will find the foreign ephemerides using uniform data worked out in the office of the "American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac" at Washington for the years beginning with 1901. He will find that these same data, after being partially adopted in the ephemeris for 1900, were thrown out in 1901, and the antiquated ones reintroduced in the main body of the ephemeris. The new ones appear simply in an appendix.

As, under the operation of law, I should be retired from active service in the March following the conference, it became a serious question whether I should be able to finish the work that had been mapped out, as well as the planetary tables. Mr. Secretary Herbert, on his own motion so far as I know, sent for me to inquire into the subject. The result of the conference was a movement on his part to secure an appropriation somewhat less than the highest salary of a professor, to compensate me for the completion of the work after my retirement. The House Committee on Appropriations, ever mindful of economy in any new item, reduced the amount to a clerical salary. The committee of conference compromised on a mean between the two. It happened that the work on the stars was not specified in the law,—only the tables of the planets. In consequence I had no legal right to go on with the former, although the ephemerides of Europe were waiting for the results. After much trouble an arrangement was effected under which the computers on the work were not to be prohibited from consulting me in its prosecution.

Astronomical work is never really done and finished. The questions growing out of the agreement or non-agreement of the tables with observations still remain to be studied, and require an immense amount of computation. In what country and by whom these computations will be made no one can now tell. The work which I most regretted to leave unfinished was that on the motion of the moon. As I have already said, this work is complete to 1750. The computations for carrying it on from 1750 to the present time were perhaps three fourths done when I had to lay them aside. In 1902, when the Carnegie Institution was organized, it made a grant for supplying me with the computing assistance and other facilities necessary for the work, and the Secretary of the Navy allowed me the use of the old computations. Under such auspices the work was recommenced in March, 1903.

So far as I can recall, I never asked anything from the government which would in any way promote my personal interests. The only exception, if such it is, is that during the civil war I joined with other professors in asking that we be put on the same footing with other staff corps of the navy as regarded pay and rank. So far as my views were concerned, the rank was merely a pro forma matter, as I never could see any sound reason for a man pursuing astronomical duties caring to have military rank.

In conducting my office also, the utmost economy was always studied. The increase in the annual appropriations for which I asked was so small that, when I left the office in 1877, they were just about the same as they were back in the fifties, when it was first established. The necessary funds were saved by economical administration. All this was done with a feeling that, after my retirement, the satisfaction with which one could look back on such a policy would be enhanced by a feeling on the part of the representatives of the public that the work I had done must be worthy of having some pains taken to secure its continuance in the same spirit.

I do not believe that the men who conduct our own government are a whit behind the foremost of other countries in the desire to promote science. If after my retirement no special measures were deemed necessary to secure the continuance of the work in which I had been engaged, I prefer to attribute it to adventitious circumstances rather than to any undervaluation of scientific research by our authorities.

IX

SCIENTIFIC WASHINGTON

It is sometimes said that no man, in passing away, leaves a place which cannot be equally well filled by another. This is doubtless true in all ordinary cases. But scientific research, and scientific affairs generally at the national capital, form an exception to many of the rules drawn from experience in other fields.

Professor Joseph Henry, first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was a man of whom it may be said, without any reflection on men of our generation, that he held a place which has never been filled. I do not mean his official place, but his position as the recognized leader and exponent of scientific interests at the national capital. A world-wide reputation as a scientific investigator, exalted character and inspiring presence, broad views of men and things, the love and esteem of all, combined to make him the man to whom all who knew him looked for counsel and guidance in matters affecting the interests of science. Whether any one could since have assumed this position, I will not venture to say; but the fact seems to be that no one has been at the same time able and willing to assume it.