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Davis’s Report on the Nautical Almanac. 319 
also endeavors to add to the sum of knowledge by the discovery 
of new facts, and the observation of new truths and phenomena, 
as exemplified by the frequent discovery of planets and comets, 
and the constant observation of those, the periods of which are 
still to be investigated—by the study of the nature of comets, of 
the rings of Saturn, of the comparative brightness of stars and 
planets, &c. 
The business of the office of a “Nautical Almanac and Astro- 
nomical Ephemeris,” is to predict, one or more years in advance, 
the events and phenomena, the actual occurrrence of which the 
cbservatory records, and which the navigator compares, observes 
and calculates while on the otherwise pathless sea, in order to pass 
in safety from country to country. ~ 
The calculations of the Nautical Almanac are made principally 
Professor Winlock, of Kentucky; by Mr. ars C. Walker, of 
Washington ; by Professor Kendall, of Philadelphia; by Professor 
Smith, of the Wesleyan University, at Middletown; and by Miss 
Mitchell, of Nantucket. ; : 
The observations used by the Nautical Almanac, that is the 
observations on which the fundamental laws of the astronomical 
prediction are based, have not been made at one observatory, but 
at all observatories; not at one place, but at all places of correct 
and well attested observation on the globe ; not at one time, but 
in all times of authentic history. 
2. Why the same are not made at the National Observatory 
at Washington ? p> 
Whenever, in the progress of theoretical investigation, or in 
Consequence of entirely new discoveries, or for the purpose of 
anticipating the official publication of printed volumes, it has been 
Occasionally desirable and expedi nt to have recourse to an ob- 
Servatory, the national observatory at Washington is the only one 
to which the superintendent of the almanac has applied for in- 
Ormation. .; 
_ The superintendent of the national observatory has been re- 
quested, for example, to make some meridian observations of 
