COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 267 
centrated molasses, testing by the polariscope not above seventy-five degrees, shall 
pay a duty of one and forty-hundredths cent per pound, and for every additional 
degree or fraction of a degree shown by the polariscopic test, they shall pay four- 
hundredths of a cent per pound additional. 
“ All sugars above No. 13 Dutch standard in color shall be classified by the 
Dutch standard of color, and pay duty as follows, namely:” .... (p. 502).%° 
Thus, the use of the polariscope in levying duties on certain 
grades of sugar, recommended, as we may believe, by the 
National Academy, was finally legalized, and the executive 
branch of the Government was aided, for a time, at least, in its 
efforts to collect the proper revenue from this commodity. 
COMMITTEE ON PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE 
AMERICAN EPHEMERIS. 1877 
This committee was appointed at the request of the Secretary 
of the Navy who, in December, 1877, expressed the desire that 
the Academy would advise him as to changes in the Nautical 
Almanac which would render that publication more useful to 
navigators and others. The members of the committee were 
J. E. Hilgard, J. H. C. Coffin, Asaph Hall, Charles A. Schott, 
Charles A. Young, James C. Watson and C. H. F. Peters. It 
reported at the end of the year 1877 or early in 1878, but the 
report appears not to have been published. From the report 
of Prof. Simon Newcomb as Superintendent of the Nautical 
Almanac for the fiscal year 1877-78, however, we learn the 
nature of the changes proposed by the Academy. Under date 
of October 26, 1878, he writes: °° 
“c 
. . . . In December, 1877, on recommendation of the office, the honorable 
Secretary of the Navy referred to the National Academy of Sciences the question, 
what changes were required in the Ephemeris to make it more serviceable to those 
who use it. A committee of the Academy recommended several extensive changes, 
involving the omission of matter of which some was not regarded as necessary, 
and some could be readily derived from data in other parts of the work. The 
space thus left was filled by the addition of matter considered useful. The chiefs 
of several government surveys desired a large increase in the list of fixed stars 
contained in the Ephemeris, in order to facilitate the determination of geographical 
* Stat. at Large, vol. 22, 1883, pp. 488, 489, 502, 47th Congress, 2d Session, 1883, chap. 121. 
* Rep. Secr. Navy for 1878, pp. 162-164. 
