January 28, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



Ill 



Many other points might be commented 

 upon, but it was not intended to make any 

 extended criticism of a work which quickly 

 proves to be unworthy of extended notice, 

 except as an example of how a government 

 may spend its money during a ' reform ' 

 administration. Of the fitness of the author 

 for the task he has undertaken he has him- 

 self given the most valuable testimony. He 

 saj's, "When these computations were begun 

 I was not aware that Baron George von 

 Vega had preceded me in his Thesaurus 

 Logarithmorum Completus." This great 

 work of Vega, which every tyro in compu- 

 ting knows, was published in 1794. This 

 is more than a hundred years ago, and it is 

 not easy to understand how one could 

 seriously think of repeating such a perform- 

 ance without finding that it had already 

 been done. The author thinks he has dis- 

 covered some serious mistakes in Vega, but 

 he delicately refrains from telling what they 

 are, nor does he say that he has yet learned 

 (a hundred years not having elapsed) that 

 in 1889 Vega's tables were freed from all 

 known errors, those discovered during a 

 use of about one hundred years, and repub- 

 lished in Europe in a cheap form by a pro- 

 cess prohibiting additional typographic 

 blunders. Had he known this he must 

 certainly have informed the Secretary of 

 the Treasury that the expense of the pres- 

 ent publication might be avoided. Not 

 liking to imitate Vega in every respect, he 

 adopted a different arrangement of numbers 

 and logarithms, which he says is the same 

 as that of ' the admirable tables published 

 by Messrs. W. & R. Chambers, London and 

 Edinburgh, 1885.' For this statement the 



Messrs. Chambers are surely entitled to 

 action and recovery. 



It is but just to the many able and dis- 

 tinguished scientific men serving in the 

 bureau from which this publication comes 

 to say that it was prepared by their chief, 

 published under his name and by his order. 

 They have had nothing to do with it, ex- 

 cept, doubtless, to reduce, as far as possible, 

 those errors which yield to ordinary ' proof 

 reading.' Nor must the author be blamed 

 severely, as he is rather deserving of pity. 

 For this costly and worse than absolutely 

 useless production the country is indebted 

 to the ' spoils theory ' in politics, and it rep- 

 resents but a minute fraction of what that 

 theory has cost in government scientific 

 work alone. We have good reason to hope 

 that the present administration will avoid 

 the mistakes that must follow in the wake 

 of politics applied to the great scientific 

 bureaus of the government. 



THE UNITED STATES NAVAL OBSERVATORY* 

 The history of the Naval Observatory, 

 since its separation from the Hydrographic 

 Office, will naturally be looked for in its 

 annual reports, which are found in the re- 

 ports of the Navy Department. In 1866 

 the building of a splendid new observatory 

 was commenced on such a scale that sev- 

 eral years were required for its completion. 

 In 1894 Secretary Herbert framed regula- 

 tions for its government, the most impor- 



*We have been requested to reprint this article from 

 the New York Evening Post 'o£ January 19th. I£ the 

 criticism o£ the trivial character of the vpork of the 

 Observatory is well founded the matter should be 

 brought to the attention of those interested in the 

 eilSciency of the scientific work of the government. 

 If the strictures are incorrect those responsible for the 

 management of the Observatory should be allovred to 

 reply in a scientific journal. — Ed. Science. 



