facilitated his work on the various phases of this problem of planetary
motions. Their solution was here a legitimate part of the routine work of
the office, and he had the aid of able assistants,--such men as G.W. Hill,
who worked out a large part of the theory of Jupiter and Saturn, and
Cleveland Keith, who died in 1896, just as the final results of his work
were being combined. In connection with this work Professor Newcomb
strongly advocated the unification of the world's time by the adoption of
an international meridian, and also international agreement upon a uniform
system of data for all computations relating to the fixed stars. The
former still hangs fire, owing to mistaken "patriotism"; the latter was
adopted at an international conference held in Paris in 1896, but after it
had been carried into effect in our own Nautical Almanac, professional
jealousies brought about a modification of the plan that relegated the
improved and modernized data to an appendix.

Professor Newcomb's retirement from active service made the continuance of
his great work on an adequate scale somewhat problematical, and his data
on the moon's motion were laid aside for a time until a grant from the
newly organized Carnegie Institution in 1903 enabled him to employ the
necessary assistance, and the work has since gone forward to completion.

What is the value of such work, and why should fame be the reward of him
who pursues it successfully? Professor Newcomb himself raises this
question in his "Reminiscences," and without attempting to answer it
directly he notes that every civilized nation supports an observatory at
great annual expense to carry on such research, besides which many others
are supported by private or corporate contributions. Evidently the
consensus of public opinion must be that the results are worth at least a
part of what they cost. The question is included in the broader one of the
value of all research in pure science. Speaking generally, the object of