“…Instead, William Harkness proceeded to publish a value of 8".842 ± 0.0118 based on US photof.,'Taphs obtained during the 1882 transit (Annual Report, ] 889: 424-425), and he and Newcomb were only able to improve on tlllS in the 1890s by re-analysing earlier data on the understanding that the solar parallax was intricately linked to such parameters as tlle lunar parallax, the constants of precession and nutation, the parallactic inequality of the Moon, the masses of Earth and Moon, and the velocity of light. Their values of 8".809 ± 0.0059 and 8">800 ± 0.0038 (Harkness, 1894;Newcomb, 1895) are remarkably close to the currentlyaccepted value of 8".794148 ± 0.000007, which was ratified by the lAU in 1976.…”