Discovery of an Error in the Nautical Almanac. 37 



brought nothing to contradict it : but the fact is, I have 

 niade^iio such attempts, but quite the contrary, by an al- 

 lowance that, had the French declared the epheniens to be 

 oriirinally theirs, I have shown they are declaring nothmg 

 nio~re than fafcls, since it has been from tables of their own 

 computation, that the Nautical Ahr.anac has been in a great 

 measure compiled. I have likewise said, that " with respect 

 to that part of the statement contained in the Philosophical 

 Magazine, ivhich accuses the French of copijing from the 

 calculations of the Nautical Almanac in making up the ephe- • 

 meris for the Connoissunce des Terns; it must he confessed, 

 that if they have declared that those parts ivere actually cal- 

 culated In/ themselves, and not taken from the Nautial yll- 

 vianac\ they are deserving of censure :"and doubtless, in such 

 case they would be deserving of severe censure, as by that 

 means they would impose on the world circumstances as 

 facts, which are not so. I have further added, that I never 

 saw, or heard anv one say they ever did see, such declaration ; 

 and I must still affirm the same, notwithstanding Dr. Kelly's 

 quotation, which I cannot conceive in any point of view to 

 contradict it, though, as he says, the names of the con)puters 

 are specified." 



In commenting on Mr. Groombridge's letter. Dr. Kelly 

 seems to catch at a little oversight which that gentleman 

 made in wording his communication, though its true inter- 

 pretation is easily made out. No person except those who 

 w ish to quibble on v/ords,can object to his method of expres- 

 sion in the sense in which he wishes himself to be under- 

 stood. He plainly objects to Dr. Kelly's statement in being 

 the discoverer, as related to the lime of communication, and 

 not to the lime in which the discrepancy \va% first observed, 

 as is evident from his saying he had, long before Dr. Kelly's 

 visit to the Observatory, made the subject known both to 

 Dr. Maskelyne and Mr. Pond. But Mr. Groombridge 

 did not communicate this observation of his with such cir- 

 cumstances as should induce these gentlemen to suppose 

 that he considered the safety of the British navy as hkely 

 to be endangered by it; nor did it, I dare say, ever enter his 

 bead, to be at the trouble of calculating new tables of the 

 sun's lono-iuidc, right ascension and declination, either 

 for the use of his own observatory, or for the use of the 

 public. Mr. Groombridge is a man too well informed on 

 these subjects to consider the discrepancy in question in any 

 other pomt of view than that of its true point of view, viz. 

 that it is of but little importance to either the astronomer or 

 sailor, whether the Nautical Almanac is computed wiih an 



obliquity 



