Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/9

 idea of compiling this History was started some years before the Centenary. A Committee was appointed to deal with the matter, and it was decided to distribute the work among ten Fellows of the Society, each being responsible for one decade. It was hoped that by beginning thus early the different collaborators would be able to collect materials in a leisurely manner. But the best scheme has its drawbacks, and it is a familiar fact that having plenty of time may result in being late after all. Moreover, in some cases those who had undertaken a share found that their hearts failed them, and it is due to the untiring assistance of Dr. Dreyer, who came to the rescue, that the scheme has been finally carried out in a somewhat modified form. Not only has Dr. Dreyer dealt in all with fifty years out of the hundred, but he has acted as co-editor for the whole, and if I venture to sign my name to this preface as original editor, it is chiefly in order that I may express more fully my grateful thanks to him for all that he has done, which included the important but tiresome undertaking of compiling the index.

The list of independent authors ultimately stands as follows:

It was almost inevitable that in spite of every desire to the contrary some things should be overlooked until too late. One or two points concerning the early years were caught in time to add them on pages 48 and 49; but the later limit also brings its difficulties. The century of which this is the history closed at a time when the Society was again in full vigour and growth after the difficult years of the great war, and some things which occurred after the limiting date were the natural outcome of those which preceded it. Thus it seems proper to mention, even though only in a footnote, the generous donations prompted by the deplorable effects of the war on our finances; and the very sight of this note (on p. 246) suggested (although too late for proper treatment in that place) that the noble bequest of a library of early mathematical and astronomical books, with £250 towards the expenses of housing them, which we owe to the late Colonel