Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/249

 1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 217 star places, means to enable a computer to include the short- period terms of nutation in the star corrections, ephemerides of satellites as in the American Ephemeris, the beginning of the year to be taken as the moment when the sun's mean longitude is 280. The Admiralty were addressed with a view to steps being taken to carry these modifications into effect ; they were adopted by the new Superintendent, Downing, beginning with the year 1896. In 1897 November an alarm was raised at the meeting of the Council, that the Society had not been consulted about certain changes introduced in the Nautical Almanac from 1901, in con- sequence of a conference of directors of national ephemerides, held at Paris in 1896. A Committee was appointed (including Downing), which at the meeting in December presented lengthy Minutes, pointing out that the initiative of the changes in 1834 and 1891 had been taken by the Society. The new changes included the adoption of new values of astronomical constants and the use of Newcomb's planetary tables, as well as a catalogue of more than 400 stars. The Committee considered that these changes seriously concerned the Society and astronomers in general, as confusion might result in case the changes were not adopted everywhere. A copy of this resolution was sent to the Hydrographer, with an expression of the hope that the Society was not in danger of losing the privilege of being consulted by the Admiralty. To this a reply was at once sent, acknowledging that a mistake had been made, and assuring the Society that " there was no intention on the part of anyone at the Admiralty to act otherwise than in accordance with precedent." In a further letter dated December 23 the Admiralty asked the opinion of the Council, as there was a divergence of opinion between the Astronomer Royal on the one hand and H.M. Astronomer at the Cape and the Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac on the other, as to adopting the resolutions of the Paris Conference. My Lords were much impressed with the value of the system of international exchange of certain calculations, which, they understood, would be much facilitated by the adoption of the same data.* The appointment of another Committee was the result of this communication. They advised, that since the changes had already been introduced in the Nautical Almanac for 1901, they might be provisionally continued in the volume for 1902, pending a fuller consideration of the matter. This report was adopted by the Council, recommending that all necessary data for reducing the various national ephemerides was further elaborated at a conference in Paris in 1911 October. Cf. M.N., 72, 342.
 * This system of dividing a considerable portion of the computing between