Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/78

 60 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40 moderate, but no less convincing style of Baily.* The violence of South was no doubt disapproved by many ; thus, Airy writes in his Autobiography : "In February and March I have letters from Young about the Nautical Almanac : he was unwilling to make any great change, but glad to receive any small assistance. South, who had been keeping up a series of attacks on Young, wrote to me to enquire how I stood in engagements of assistance to Young. I replied that I should assist Young whenever he asked me, and that I disapproved of South's course. The date of the first visitation of the Cambridge Observatory must have been near May n. I invited South and Baily to my house ; South and I were very near quarrelling about the treatment of Young. In a few days after Dr. Young died [on May 10], I applied to Lord Melville for the superintendence of the Nautical Almanac : Mr. Croker replied that it devolved legally upon the Astronomer Royal, and on May 30, Pond wrote to ask my assistance when I could give any." Young's death and Pond's assuming charge of the Almanac seem to have caused a lull in the agitation. It was probably thought that the work would at once recover the prestige it had enjoyed in the days of Maskelyne. Anyhow, nothing was done by Pond except, no doubt, to see that the former standard of accuracy was again attained, while he continued the issue of a yearly supplement containing some of the additional information demanded. The call for a more radical reform was, however, aided by the Astronomical Society giving its Gold Medal to Encke in 1830 February for his Astronomisches Jahrbuch for 1830. This was the first step of an official character which the Society took in support of the demand for a completely new British ephemeris. South, when presenting the medal (which he did in a moderate and dignified speech), announced that the Admiralty had ordered some additions to the Almanac for 1833, and intended to order further additions to that for 1834. At last the Admiralty made a move in the right direction by addressing a letter to the Council of the Astronomical Society on 1830 July 28. This stated that directions had been given to the Astronomer Royal, who was in temporary charge of the Nautical Almanac, to insert certain additions proposed by the late Hydro- ranean, was obliged to use the ephemerides of Paris, Milan, Bologna, and Florence on account of the omissions and errors of the Nautical Almanac (this Smyth in a letter certifies to be true). But wishing to show civility to a Spanish captain, he presented him with his copies of the Nautical Almanac for the current and subsequent years. " Captain Smyth with his foreign ephemerides found his way to England ; but there is an awkward story afloat that the Spanish captain has not since been heard of."
 * We must give one little specimen. Smyth, when surveying the Mediter-