Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/79

 1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 61 grapher, Sir Edward Parry, and " not objected to " by certain members of the Society, to whom they had been communicated. A printed copy of the proposed improvements for 1833 January was sent with the letter, with a request to state whether they were sufficient. On receipt of this, the Council lost no time, but at once appointed a Committee of forty members (including all the members of the Council) to consider the matter. This unwieldy Committee, however, was only nominal, and the work was done by a Sub-Committee consisting of Airy, Babbage, Baily, Beaufort, J. Herschel, Pond, Robinson, South (Chairman), Stratford, and W. Struve. The last mentioned was on a visit to this country, and " devoted a considerable portion of his time to these proceedings." The " improved " ephemeris for 1833 January submitted to the Society by the Admiralty (all the figures in which were ficti- tious) was altogether unsatisfactory.* The time of rising and setting of sun and moon were introduced ; otherwise the chief alteration was that the place of the moon was given for every three hours instead of for noon and midnight only. The places of the planets were left without change, i.e. that of Mercury was still given for every third day, " the Georgian " for every tenth, all the others for every sixth day, and to i m in R.A. and i' in Decl. only. The Report of the Committee was submitted to the Council and adopted by them on 1830 November 19, when thanks were voted to Baily " for his magnanimous and spirited devotion of his time and talents to the composition and redaction of the Report." It is printed in full in the Memoirs (4, 449-470), and in the introduction to the Nautical Almanac for 1834. The Committee declare that they had constantly kept in view the principal object for which the Nautical Almanac was originally formed, viz., the advancement of nautical astronomy ; but they had also remembered that by a very slight extension of the com- putations and a few additional articles, the work might be rendered equally useful for all the purposes of practical astronomy. The first reform demanded was the substitution of mean time everywhere for apparent solar time, though the R.A. and Decl. of the sun and the equation of time should be given both for apparent and mean noon. An additional column to be introduced, giving the M.T. of the transit of the first point of Aries. The use of signs (of the Zodiac) as indicating arcs of 30 to be abolished in expressing longitude. The R.A. and Decl. of the moon to be given for every hour. The time of rising and setting of sun and moon to be omitted. As regards the four principal planets, their places accordance with the plan of the specimen for January.
 * The Nautical Almanac for 1833, the last one edited by Pond, is in perfect