Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/40

 26 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30 and other objects of special interest. Instead of this Francis Baily led them on a campaign of meridian observation, star- corrections, and improvement of the Nautical Almanac. Many of our present Fellows would associate these ideas with the " chilling torpor of routine," which Sir John Herschel deplored, and from which (according to his implication rather than his direct state- ment) the new Society offered a means of escape. But it must be remembered that meridian work has been converted into routine by the century of unremitting toil which stands between us and our Founders toil which they did much to stimulate, and which has provided us with the luxuries of accurate star-places and star-movements which they were without, and which they enthusiastically set out to acquire. The actual acquisition to-day is, of course, largely due to the work of national observatories ; but the conspicuous figures of Stephen Groombridge and Francis Baily remind us of the important part played by our Society in its early years. Flamsteed and Bradley had started such work nearly a century earlier still, but had been indifferently supported. In 1820 a new impulse was given by our own Fellows of a value scarcely to be overestimated : for even the vigour of Airy might have been less effective but for the support of the Royal Astronomical Society. As this close connection of our Society (and especially of Baily) with accurate calculations is a really fundamental issue, a few further remarks upon it may be pardoned. Let us look at the following utterance of De Morgan in 1854 : It appears to me that the Royal Society, during the present century, has shown great want of power to appreciate improvements in calculation of results ; and I am afraid I must add, that the University to which I owe my own education has been one cause of this exhibition. I think that for fifty years there was a growing tendency at Cambridge to neglect, in teaching, all that follows the resulting formula or the final equation ; though I suspect that this tendency has passed its culminating point. These words are quoted from an article in the Assurance Magazine * on George Barrett and Francis Baily. The former was a self-taught calculator (1752-1821), who had produced some valuable Life Annuity Tables by a new method of his own. Baily entered into correspondence with him, realised the great value of his tables and method, and endeavoured to get them published. One of his attempts was to submit a paper to the Royal Society in 1811 ; but the paper was rejected. De Morgan comments : now in the R.A.S. library.
 * A copy was bound up by De Morgan with his volume of Daily's Journal,