Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/43

 1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 27 The rejection of Baily's paper on Barrett's method by the Royal Society is one of those unfortunate instances which create a fear lest there should be other communications, as valuable, which have also been rejected, but have never found such a cham- pion as Baily. It is usual to attribute this rejection to the late William Morgan, who was at that time a member of the Council. . . . But it must not be forgotten that the celebrated Thomas Young, an acute writer on annuities, was also on the Council, and as probably on the Committee. Baily. . . was afterwards, as it happened, in open opposition to Young on the question of the Nautical Almanac. This paragraph suggests several reflections. Firstly, we cannot but think of Waterston's paper on the Kinetic Theory of Gases, rejected by the Royal Society in 1845, but subsequently rescued and printed by Lord Rayleigh (Phil. Trans. A, 1892, 183, i). He remarks that " the memoir marks an immense advance in the direction of the now generally received theory. The omission to publish it at the time was a misfortune which probably retarded the development of the subject by ten or fifteen years. ... It is difficult to put oneself in imagination into the position of the reader of 1845, . . . but it is startling to find a referee expressing the opinion that the paper is nothing but nonsense, unfit even for reading before the Society." It is almost equally startling to read the following considered judgment of Lord Rayleigh himself, which gives all scientific societies food for thought : The history of this paper suggests that highly speculative in- vestigations, especially by an unknown author, are best brought before the world through some other channel than a scientific society, which naturally hesitates to admit into its printed records matter of uncertain value. Perhaps one may go further, and say that a young author who believes himself capable of great things would usually do well to secure the favourable recognition of the scientific world by work whose scope is limited, and whose value is easily judged, before embarking upon higher flights. We are strongly tempted to hope that this judgment may not be sound. As regards Waterston himself, he had, to some extent, adopted just the procedure recommended by sending to our own Society (in 1844 June) a short note on a graphical method by which, with ten to fifteen minutes work, an occultation could be predicted within one minute ; and in the January following some good observations of the comet. But, of course, the Royal Society knew nothing of this. The figure of Waterston is so tragically interesting that a brief reference to his later papers may be excused. In 1858 he communicated to us some " Thoughts on the Formation