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ad been supposed. Later, when Newcomb's investigations along this line had extended to the major planets and their satellites, a curious anomaly in the moon's motion made it necessary for him to look for possible observations made long before those hitherto recorded. The accepted tables were based on observations extending back as far as 1750, but Newcomb, by searching the archives of European observatories, succeeded in discovering data taken as early as 1660, not, of course, with such an investigation as this in view, but chiefly out of pure scientific curiosity. The reduction of such observations, especially as the old French astronomers used apparent time, which was frequently in error by quarter of an hour or so, was a matter of great difficulty. The ancient observer, having no idea of the use that was to be made of his work, had supplied no facilities for interpreting it, and "much comparison and examination was necessary to find out what sort of an instrument was used, how the observations were made, and how they should be utilized for the required purpose." The result was a vastly more accurate lunar theory than had formerly been obtained. During the period when Newcomb was working among the old papers of the Paris Observatory, the city, then in possession of the Communists, was beset by the national forces, and his studies were made within hearing of the heavy siege guns, whose flash he could even see by glancing through his window. Newcomb's appointment as head of the Nautical Almanac office greatly facilitated his work on the various phases of this problem of planetary motions. Their solution was here a legitimate part of the routine work of the office, and he had the aid of able assistants,--such men as G.W. Hill, who worked out a large part of the theory of Jupiter and Saturn, and Cleveland Keith, who died in 1896, just as the final results of his work were being combined. In connection with this work Professor Newcomb strongly advocated the unification of the world's time by the adoption of an international meridian, and also international agreement upon a uniform system of data for all computations relating to the fixed stars. The former still hangs fire, owing to mistaken "patriotism"; the latter was adopted at an international conference held in Paris in 1896, but after it had been carried into effect in our own Nautical Almanac, professional jealousies brought about a modification of the plan that
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