Maskelyne's next service to science was almost as important. He arranged that the regular and systematic publication of the observations made at Greenwich should be a distinct part of the duties of an Astronomer Royal, and he procured an arrangement by which a special fund was set apart by the Royal Society for printing them. His observations covering the years 1776 to 1811 fill four large folio volumes, and though, as already stated, he had but one assistant, they are 90,000 in number. Thus it was Maskelyne who first rendered effective the design which Charles II. had in the establishment of the Observatory. Flamsteed and Halley had been too jealous of their own observations to publish; Bradley's observations--though he himself was entirely free from this jealousy--were made, after his death, the subject of litigation by his heirs and representatives, who claimed an absolute property in them, a claim which the Government finally allowed. None of the three, however much their work ultimately tended to the improvement of the art of navigation, made that their first object. Whereas Maskelyne set this most eminently practical object in the forefront, and so gave to the Royal Observatory, which under his predecessors somewhat resembled a private observatory, its distinctive characteristics of a public institution. It fell to Maskelyne to have to advise the Government as to the assignment of their great reward of £20,000 for the discovery of the longitude at sea. Maskelyne, while reporting favourably of the behaviour of Harrison's time-keeper, considered that the method of 'lunars' was far too important to be ignored, and he therefore recommended that half the sum should be given to Harrison for his watch, whilst the other half was awarded for the lunar tables which Mayer, before his death, had sent to the Board of Longitude. This decision, though there can be no doubt it was the right one, led to much dissatisfaction on the part of Harrison, who urged his claim for the whole grant very vigorously; and eventually the whole £20,000 was paid him. The whole question of rewards to chronometer-makers must have been one which caused Maskelyne much vexation. He was made the subject of a bitter and most voluminous attack by Thomas Mudge, for having preferred the work of Arnold and Earnshaw to his own.