charged to the extent of the
evidence collected, and not to diffuseness or the presentation of
needless detail; for I have studiously sought to compress the form of
statement without omitting anything essential for searching
criticism. That it was important to do this is manifest, since the
conclusions, if established, overthrow the existing theory of the
earth's rotation, as I have pointed out on p. 21. I am neither
surprised nor disconcerted, therefore, that Professor Newcomb should
hesitate to accept some of these conclusions on the ground (_A. J._,
No. 271) that they are in such conflict with the laws of dynamics
that we are entitled to pronounce them impossible. He has been so
considerate and courteous in his treatment of my work thus far, that
I am sure he will not deem presumptuous the following argument in
rebuttal.

[Sidenote: He "put aside all teachings of theory," and "is not
dismayed."]

"It should be said, first, that in beginning these investigations
last year, I deliberately put aside all teachings of theory, because
it seemed to me high time that the facts should be examined by a
purely inductive process; that the nugatory results of all attempts
to detect the existence of the Eulerian period probably arose from a
defect of the theory itself; and that the entangled condition of the
whole subject required that it should be examined afresh by processes
unfettered by any preconceived notions whatever. The problem which I
therefore proposed to myself was to see whether it would not be
possible to lay the numerous ghosts--in the shape of numerous
discordant residual phenomena pertaining to determinations of
aberration, parallaxes, latitudes, and the like--which had heretofore
flitted elusively about the astronomy of precision during the
century; or to reduce them to tangible form by some simple consistent
hypothesis. It was thought that if this could be done, a study of the
nature of the forces, as thus indicated, by which the earth's
rotation is influenced, might lead to a physical explanation of them.

"Naturally, then, I am not much dismayed by the argument of conflict
with dynamic laws, since all that such a phrase means must refer
merely to the existent state of the theory at any given time. When
the 427-day period was propo