In his retirement the work made good progress, and on
Dec. 31st, 1882, he made the following note: "I finished and put in
general order the final tables of Equations of Variations. This is a
definite point in the Lunar Theory.... I hope shortly to take up
severely the numerical operations of the Lunar Theory from the very
beginning." The work was continued steadily through 1883, and on
Mar. 24th, 1884, he made application through the Board of Visitors to
the Admiralty to print the work: after the usual enquiries as to the
expense this was acceded to, and copy was sent to the printers as soon
as it was ready. The first printed proofs were received on Feb. 5th,
1885, and the whole book was printed by the end of 1886. From the
frequent references in his journal to errors discovered and corrected
during the progress of these calculations, it would seem likely that
his powers were not what they had been, and that there was a
probability that some important errors might escape correction. He
was far too honest to blind himself to this possibility, and in the
Preface to his Numerical Lunar Theory he says thus: "I have explained
above that the principle of operations was, to arrange the fundamental
mechanical equations in a form suited for the investigations of Lunar
Theory; to substitute in the terms of these equations the numerical
values furnished by Delaunay's great work; and to examine whether the
equations are thereby satisfied.
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