SIMON NEWCOMB. 
145 
the extraordinary quantity and quality of his contributions 
to astronomical science. 
Early in life he set for himself the gigantic task of bring- 
ing the observed motions of the members of the solar system 
into harmony with the Newtonian law of attraction, arid for 
nearly fifty years lie was one of the small number of leaders 
in this large division of mathematical astronomy. The har- 
mony in question had been demonstrated to the first order 
of approximation in that mightiest of all systematic treatises, 
the Mecanique Celeste of Laplace. But the vast accumula- 
tions of precise observations of the planets and their satellites 
during the first half of the nineteenth century showed the 
necessity for a higher order of approximation, which could 
be attained only by an insight and an industry comparable 
with those of Laplace himself. 
The magnitude of this undertaking is set forth so capitally 
well in semi-popular language in his “Reminiscences,” pub- 
lished in 1903, that it may best be indicated to you by 
quoting from this most interesting volume.* 
Three years previous to the publication of his “Remi- 
niscences,” namely, in December, 1899, I had occasion, as 
retiring President of the American Mathematical Society, to 
review the same general field of work in an address on “The 
Century’s Progress in Applied Mathematics.” It was neces- 
sary in this review to indicate the state of astronomical 
d ■ 
science as it was left by the brilliant researches of Lagrange, 
Laplace, and Poisson at the time of the death of Laplace, 
in 1827, and to show what steps were necessary to further 
advancement. For the purposes of the present occasion I 
can do no better than to quote a few paragraphs from this 
address, f 
Such, then, was the state of astronomical science about 
1860. when Professor Newcomb began to consider seriously 
the unparalleled task he undertook to accomplish. The most 
*See pp. 198-204 of “The Reminiscences of an Astronomer,” by 
Simon Newcomb. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
1903. 
|See pp. 139 and 148-151 of Bulletin of the American Mathematical 
Society, 2d Series, Yol. VI, No. 4, New York, January, 1900. 
