Of the regular annual ephemerides the earliest, so far as I am
aware, is the Connaissance des Temps or French Nautical Almanac.
The first issue was in the year 1679, by Picard, and it has been
continued without interruption to the present time. Its early
numbers were, of course, very small, and meagre in their details.
They were issued by the astronomers of the French Academy of
Sciences, under the combined auspices of the academy and the
government. They included not merely predictions from the tables,
but also astronomical observations made at the Paris Observatory
or elsewhere. When the Bureau of Longitudes was created in 1795,
the preparation of the work was intrusted to it, and has remained
in its charge until the present time. As it is the oldest, so, in
respect at least to number of pages, it is the largest ephemeris
of the present time. The astronomical portion of the volume for
1879 fills more than seven hundred pages, while the table of
geographical positions, which has always been a feature of the
work, contains nearly one hundred pages more.
The first issue of the British Nautical Almanac was that for the
year 1767 and appeared in 1766. It differs from the French Almanac
in owing its origin entirely to the needs of navigation.
Pages:
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