More than half a century has passed since Osborne Reynolds employed hydrodynamic principles to derive his well-known differential equation for the pressure distribution in a thin film of viscous fluid under shear. During that time many ingenious methods have been put forward for the solution of Reynolds equation in cases of engineering interest. These methods have been found useful in the few cases to which they have been applied; but none is adaptable to the production, in quantity, of much-needed data. Any future program for the preparation of a comprehensive set of bearing data will surely be carried out with the help of the large, modern, rapid-calculating machines. Until these machines become more readily available, however, the need will remain for improved calculational techniques which require only modest financial and material resources. It was with this need in mind that the work described in the present paper was undertaken.