Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/76

 58 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40 than those in the former. The positions of the planets ought to be given more frequently and more accurately.* Some of the most pressing needs both of seamen and of astro- nomers were satisfied by a year-book published by Schumacher for the Danish Hydrographic Office, beginning with the year 1822, entitled Distances of the four planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from the Moon, together with their places for every day in the year.- But Young did nothing ; he had been the teacher of the world as regards the interference of light, but he would brook no interference with his comfortable and not too onerous post as Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac. The demand for reform was, however, becoming too strong for him, when in 1827 April, John Herschel, at a meeting of the Board of Longitude, " produced a paper regarding improvements in the Nautical Almanac." Airy, who tells this in his Autobiography, adds that Herschel and he were the leaders of the reforming party in the Board, but that Young, the Secretary, resisted change as much as possible. Some slight attempt to satisfy the demand for an enlargement of the Nautical Almanac was made by publishing separately a supplement as proposed by Herschel, beginning with the year 1828 ; but it seems to have been issued just at or after the commencement of the year, and could not in any way be considered a satisfactory solution.^ In the same year, 1828, the Board of Longitude was abolished, but Young remained Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac. This year also witnessed the publication of Encke's Astronomisches Jahrbuch for 1830, embodying practically all the suggestions made in England. In 1829 January, Baily issued a second pamphlet, " Further Remarks on the present defective state of the Nautical Almanac, astronomers on shore would unite in dismissing mean time altogether from their observatories, knowing as I do, that however suitable to the wants of culinary philosophy, it is only calculated to entail on astronomical observations needless labour, lamentable uncertainty, and, I might almost add, constant error." f Young made arrangements with Schumacher to have a large number of copies imported ; but only fifty were sold in England, and Young maintained that this proved that practical seamen did not want any information of that kind. J This supplement was published for the years 1828-33. That for 1831 contains : For every day at apparent noon, mean time, hourly difference, double the sun's daily change of declination, time of semidiameter passing the meridian, sidereal time at mean noon. For the moon : R.A. and Decl. at time of transit, semidiameter in Sid. T. For midnight, log. of star constants A, B, C, D. Hor. parallax and log. dist. of planets for every five days. Moon- culminating stars. List of occultations. This particular supplement was edited by Pond. We may add that Henderson for some years calculated occultations in advance ; they were at first printed in the Quarterly Journal of Science, and from 1829 circulated by the Society in lithographed lists.
 * Curiously enough, South (p. 15) expresses his " most earnest wish that