office of the "American Ephemeris and
Nautical Almanac" at Washington for the years beginning with 1901.
He will find that these same data, after being partially adopted in
the ephemeris for 1900, were thrown out in 1901, and the antiquated
ones reintroduced in the main body of the ephemeris. The new ones
appear simply in an appendix.

As, under the operation of law, I should be retired from active
service in the March following the conference, it became a serious
question whether I should be able to finish the work that had been
mapped out, as well as the planetary tables. Mr. Secretary Herbert,
on his own motion so far as I know, sent for me to inquire into the
subject. The result of the conference was a movement on his part
to secure an appropriation somewhat less than the highest salary of
a professor, to compensate me for the completion of the work after
my retirement. The House Committee on Appropriations, ever mindful
of economy in any new item, reduced the amount to a clerical salary.
The committee of conference compromised on a mean between the two.
It happened that the work on the stars was not specified in the
law,--only the tables of the planets. In consequence I had no legal
right to go on with the former, although the ephemerides of Europe
were waiting for the results. After much trouble an arrangement
was effected under which the computers on the work were not to be
prohibited from consulting me in its prosecution.

Astronomical work is never really done and finished. The questions
growing out of the agreement or non-agreement of the tables with
observations still remain to be studied, and require an immense amount
of computation. In what country and by whom these computations will
be made no one can now tell. The work which I most regretted to leave
unfinished was that on the motion of the moon. As I have already
said, this work is complete to 1750. The computations for carrying
it on from 1750 to the present time were perhaps three fourths done
when I had to lay them aside. In 1902, when the Carnegie Institution
was organized, it made a grant for supplying me with the computing
assistance and other facilities necessary for the work, and the
Secretary of the Navy allowed me the use of the old computations.
Under such auspices the work was recommenced in March, 1903.

So far as I can recall, I never asked anything from the government
which would in any way promote my personal interests. T