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Updated: May 3, 2025
The first appropriation for an American ephemeris and nautical almanac was made by Congress in 1849. Lieutenant Charles Henry Davis, as a leader and moving spirit in securing the appropriation, was naturally made the first superintendent of the work.
In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and customs of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down; and if during the last two years the mysterious personage who, under the title of "Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, has been compelled to resort to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the great metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover new worlds in the cloud-land of fancy.
He is attended as by a visible escort of angels to every man's eye. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye. Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day.
Every observer should provide himself with a copy of the American Ephemeris for the current year, wherein he will find all the information needed to enable him to identify the various satellites and to predict, by turning Washington mean time into his own local time, the various phenomena of the transits and eclipses.
He had for some time kept a journal in Latin of the state of his illness, and the remedies which he used, under the title of Aegri Ephemeris, which he began on the 6th of July, but continued it no longer than the 8th of November; finding, I suppose, that it was a mournful and unavailing register. It is in my possession; and is written with great care and accuracy.
If, therefore, observing and calculating were considered as necessary qualifications for every sea officer, the labours of the speculative theorist to solve this problem might be remitted, without much injury to mankind: Neither will it be so difficult to acquire this qualification, or put it in practice, as may at first appear; for, with the assistance of the nautical almanack, and astronomical ephemeris, the calculations for finding the longitude will take up little more time than the calculation of an azimuth for finding the variation of the compass.
In their editorial notice Goddard and Angell say, "They feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public through their press what must be considered as an extraordinary effort of genius, a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable son of Africa," etc.
The Nautical Almanac gave from 1870 the altered value of 8.95", for which Newcomb's result of 8.85", adopted in 1869 in the Berlin Ephemeris, was substituted some ten years later. In astronomical literature the change was initiated by Sir Edmund Beckett in the first edition of his Astronomy without Mathematics.
The catalogue cannot be sufficiently complete to give places of the stars for determining the latitude by the zenith telescope, because for such a purpose a much greater number of stars is necessary than can be incorporated in the ephemeris.
He accordingly erected his scheme, or figure of heaven, divided into its twelve houses, placed the planets therein according to the ephemeris, and rectified their position to the hour and moment of the nativity.
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