code: def dread(infile, cols):
      
      data = []
      f = open(infile, "r")
      for line in f.readlines():
          tmp = line.split()
          rec = (tmp[0], float(tmp[cols[0]]), float(tmp[cols[1]]), float(tmp[cols[2]]),
                 float(tmp[cols[3]]))
          data.append(rec)
      f.close()
      return data
docs: reads in specimen, tr, dec, inc int into data[].  position of
       tr, dec, inc, int determined by cols[]