resulted in the discovery of a new inequality in the motions of
Venus and the earth due to their mutual attraction, and this led to an
improvement in the solar tables."

Nor should it be forgotten that Airy "originated the automatic system by
which the Greenwich time signals are transmitted each day throughout the
country."

With regard to the celebrated case of the planet Neptune, "which Adams
predicted would be found--as it was found by the Berlin observer Galle,
to whom Leverrier indicated its position," Messrs Schuster and Shipley
"cannot absolve either Airy or Challis [the Cambridge Astronomer] from
blame."

Airy writes (p. 181): "The engrossing subject of this year [1846] was the
discovery of Neptune. As I have said (1845), I obtained no answer from
Adams to a letter of enquiry. Beginning with June 26th of 1846, I had
correspondence of a satisfactory character with Leverrier, who had taken
up the subject of the disturbance of Uranus, and arrived at conclusions
not very different from those of Adams. I wrote from Ely on July 9th to
Challis, begging him, as in possession of the largest telescope in
England, to sweep for the planet and suggesting a plan. I received
information of its recognition by Galle, when I was visiting Hansen at
Gotha. For further official history, see my communications to the Royal
Astronomical Society, and for private history see the papers in the Royal
Observatory. I was abused most savagely both by English and French."

Having been Astronomer Royal from 1835, Airy, being eighty years of age,
resigned his post in 1881, receiving (p. 340) a "retired allowance of
1100 pounds per annum."

His son writes (p. 346), "On the 16th of August 1881 Airy left the
Observatory," which had been his home "for nearly 46 years, and removed
to the White House. Whatever his feeling may have been at the severing
of his old associations he carefully kept them to himself, and entered
upon his new life with the cheerful composure and steadiness of temper
which he possessed in a remarkable degree."

His son continues (p. 347): "The work to which he chiefly devoted himself
in his retirement was the completion of his Numerical Lunar Theory. This
was a vast work, involving the subtlest considerations of principle, very
long and elaborate mathematical investigations of a high order, and an
enormous amount of arithmetical computation." Of this work Airy wrote,
p. 349 (apparently in 1886): "The critical tri