REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 9I 



this work, an application was made to the Secretary of the Navy by 

 the Carnegie Institution in December, 1902, for the use of the com- 

 putations already made, in order that the work might be carried to 

 completion under the auspices of the Institution. This request was 

 complied with in March, 1903, and the work has since been prose- 

 cuted as rapidly as the limited time and means at Dr. Newcomb's 

 disposal have permitted. 



The work of class A is substantially completed for the action of 

 all the planets which can affect the motion of the moon. The most 

 that remains is to check some portions of the work by duplicate 

 .computations, and to compute the direct action of Saturn, which 

 will probably prove too small to be of importance. It is interesting 

 as showing the certainty obtainable in mathematical astronomy that 

 the computation by the new methods, although radically different, 

 almost from the first figure, from those previously made, have led to 

 results substantially confirming those of Radau, whose investigations 

 are the most complete heretofore made. The principal differences 

 are that the more rigorous computation has shown a marked correc- 

 tion to the Jovian evection, due to the introduction of terms omitted 

 by the other investigators. But nothing has been found which ex- 

 plains the observed inequalities of long period, and it is therefore 

 probable that thej^ can not be due to the action of the planets. 



In the work of class B the computation of 567 occultations, made 

 at various observing stations during the last seventy years, is 

 nearly complete. That they are not completely finished is owing 

 to a delay in procuring definitive positions of the occulted stars 

 from the Nautical Almanac Office. This want has recently been 

 supplied through the superintendent of the Naval Observatory, and 

 the comparison will probably be carried to completion before the 

 end of December. Besides these occultations, those observ^ed at 

 Greenwich and the Cape of Good Hope will be ultimately introduced. 

 They have been already reduced and compared in the publications of 

 the respective observatories. It is, however, necessary to transform 

 the results of this comparison in order to adapt them to the present 

 work. It is anticipated that before the end of the present calendar 

 year the comparison of the tabular and observed places of the moon 

 from the earliest Babylonian records up to the year 1903 or 1904 will 

 be completed. What will then remain will be the introduction of a 

 great number of small corrections to the tabular and observed posi- 

 tions and the discussion of the results with a view of determining 

 the elements of the moon's motion. It is expected that this work 

 will be completed during the year 1905. 



