2000."

The German official astronomers, and indeed most of the official ones
everywhere, opposed the change, but the efforts on the other side
were vigorously continued. The British Admiralty was strongly urged
to introduce the change into the Nautical Almanac, and the question
of doing this was warmly discussed in various scientific journals.

One result of this movement was that, in 1886, Rear-Admiral
George H. Belknap, superintendent of the Naval Observatory,
and myself were directed to report on the question. I drew up a
very elaborate report, discussing the subject especially in its
relations to navigation, pointing out in the strongest terms I
could the danger of placing in the hands of navigators an almanac
in which the numbers were given in a form so different from that to
which they were accustomed. If they chanced to forget the change,
the results of their computations might be out to any extent, to the
great danger and confusion of their reckoning, while not a solitary
advantage would be gained by it.

There is some reason to suppose that this document found its way
to the British Admiralty, but I never heard a word further on the
subject except that it ceased to be discussed in London. A few years
later some unavailing efforts were made to revive the discussion, but
the twentieth century is started without this confusing change being
introduced into the astronomical ephemerides and nautical almanacs
of the world, and navigators are still at liberty to practice the
system they find most convenient.

In 1894 I had succeeded in bringing so much of the work as pertained
to the reduction of the observations and the determination of the
elements of the planets to a conclusion. So far as the larger planets
were concerned, it only remained to construct the necessary tables,
which, however, would be a work of several years.

With the year 1896 came what was perhaps the most important event
in my whole plan. I have already remarked upon the confusion which
pervaded the whole system of exact astronomy, arising from the
diversity of the fundamental data made use of by the astronomers of
foreign countries and various institutions in their work. It was,
I think, rather exceptional that any astronomical result was based
on entirely homogeneous and consistent data. To remedy this state of
things and start the exact astronomy of the twentieth century on one
basis for the whole world, was one of the objects w