SIMON NEWCOMB 373 



regions on the border line between a slum and the lowest order 

 of respectability. All of the computers did their work at their 

 homes. He promptly hired an office in the top of the Corcoran 

 Building, then just completed, and there he gathered around him 

 his various assistants. He began his work with a careful examina- 

 tion of the relation of prices to work, making an estimate of the 

 time probably necessary to do each job. On the staff were several 

 able and eminent professors at various universities and schools, 

 who were being paid at high professional prices. Soon he found 

 it possible to concentrate all the work in Washington, thereby 

 effecting a reduction in the expenses of the office. " These econo- 

 mies went on increasing year by year, and every dollar that was 

 saved went into the work of making the tables necessary for the 

 future use of the Ephemeris" 



The program of work which he laid out included a discussion 

 of all the observations of value on the positions of the sun, moon, 

 and planets, and incidentally on the bright fixed stars made at the 

 leading observatories of the world from the year 1750 on, and this 

 work is described more in detail later in this sketch. Another 

 valuable undertaking was the compilation of the formulae for the 

 perturbation of the various planets by each other. 



For twenty years he continued in charge of this office, and as 

 each passing year went on its way with its record of results it 

 carried with it the gratifying assurances that the work under his 

 supervision was more and more surely reaching its successful 

 culmination. When the day for his actual retirement came he 

 left the office with the satisfaction of knowing that his work had 

 gained the appreciation of his colleagues at home and abroad, for 

 no honors such as were conferred upon him had ever come to an 

 American scientist. 



The plaudit "well done, good and faithful servant" was surely 

 his. Director Maurice Loewy who was long in charge of the 

 observatory in Paris wrote: 



"His activity has embraced the most diverse branches of 

 astronomy. Not only has he given a great scope to the intellectual 

 movement of this country, but he has also contributed in a very 



