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 shovi'n 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 follovv's, 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 

 efiforts 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 : "" 



" .... 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, 1S83, pp. 488, 489, 502, 47th Congress, 2d Session, 1883, chap. 121. 

 "■Rep. Seer. Navy for 1878, pp. 162-164. 



