practical improvements were not applied to the rougher nautical
instruments until the invention of Hadley's sextant in 1731.
In 1635 Henry Gellibrand published his discovery of the annual change in variation of the needle, which was effected by comparing the results of his own observations with those of W. Borough and Edmund Gunter. The latter was his predecessor at Gresham College.
In 1637 Richard Norwood, a sailor, and reader in mathematics, published an account of his most laudable exertions to remove one of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of correct navigation, that of not knowing the true length of a degree or nautical mile, in a pamphlet styled The Seaman’s Practices. Norwood ascertained the latitude of a position near the Tower of London in June 1633, and of a place in the centre of York in June 1635, with a sextant of more than 5 ft. radius, and, having carefully corrected the declination of the sun and allowed for refraction and parallax, made the difference of latitude 2° 28′. He then measured the distance with a chain, taking horizontal angles of all windings, and made a special table for correcting elevations and depressions. A few places which he was unable to measure he paced. His conclusion was that a degree contained 367,176 English feet; this gives 2040 yds. to a nautical mile—only about 12 yds. too much. Norwood’s work went through numerous editions, and retained its popularity over a hundred years. In a late edition he says that, as there is no means of discovering the longitude, a seaman must trust to his reckoning. He recommends the knots on the log-line to be placed 51 ft. apart, as the just proportion to a mile when used with the half-minute glass. To Norwood is also attributed the discovery of the “dip” of the magnetic needle in 1576.
The progress of the art of navigation was and is still of course inseparably connected with that of map and chart drawing and the correct astronomical determinations of positions on land. While as we have seen at an early period simple practical astronomical means of finding the latitude at sea were known and in use, no mode could be devised of finding longitude except by the rough method of estimating the run of the ship, so that the only mode of arriving at a port of destination was to steer so as to get into the latitude of such a port either to the eastward or westward of its supposed position, and then approach it on the parallel of its latitude. The success of this method would of course greatly depend upon the accuracy with which the longitude of such port was known. Even with the larger and more accurate instruments used in astronomical observatories on shore the means of ascertaining latitude were far in advance of those by which longitude could be obtained, and this equally applied to the various heavenly bodies themselves upon which the terrestrial positions depended, the astronomical element of declination (corresponding to latitude) being far more accurately determined than that of right ascension (corresponding to longitude).
Almanacs were first published on the continent of Europe in 1457, but the earliest printed work of that kind in England is dated 1497. The only portions of their contents of use to seamen were tables of the declination of the sun, rough elements of the positions of a few stars, and tables for finding latitude by the pole star.
No accurate predictions of the positions of the moon, stars and planets could, however, be made until the laws governing their movements were known, such laws of course involving a knowledge of their actual positions at different widely separated epochs.
In 1699 Edmund Halley (subsequently astronomer royal), in command of the “Paramour,” undertook a voyage to improve the knowledge of longitude and of the variation of the compass. The results of his voyage were the construction of the first variation chart, and proposals for finding the longitude by occultations of fixed stars.
The necessity for having more correct charts being equalled by the pressing need of obtaining the longitude by some simple and correct means available to seamen, many plans had already been thought of for this purpose. At one time it was hoped that the longitude might be directly discovered by observing the variation of the compass and comparing it with that laid down on charts. In 1674 Charles II. actually appointed a commission to investigate the pretensions of a scheme of this sort devised by Henry Bond, and the same idea appears as late as 1777 in S. Dunn’s Epitome. But the only accurate method of ascertaining the longitude is by knowing the difference of time at the same instant at the meridian of the observer and that of Greenwich; and till the invention and perfecting of chronometers this could only be done by finding at two such places the apparent time of the same celestial phenomenon.
A class of phenomena whose comparative frequency recommended them for longitude observations, viz. the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, became known through Galileo’s discovery of these bodies (1610). Tables for such eclipses were published by Dominic Cassini at Bologna in 1688, and repeated in a more correct form at Paris in 1693 by his son, who was followed by J. Pound, J. Bradley, P. W. Wargentin, and many other astronomers. But this method, though useful on land, is not suited to mariners; when W. Whiston, for example, in 1737 recommended that the satellites should be observed by a reflecting telescope, he did not sufficiently consider the difficulty of using a telescope at sea.
Another method proposed was that of comparing the local time of the moon’s crossing the meridian of the observer with the predicted time of the same event at Greenwich, the difference of the two depending upon the moon’s motion during the time represented by the longitude; thus Herne’s Longitude Unveiled (1678), proposes to find the time of the moon’s meridian passage at sea by equal altitudes with the cross-staff, and then compare apparent time at ship with London time. The accuracy of this, as in the case of lunar problems, would obviously depend upon a more perfect knowledge of the laws of the moon’s motion than then existed.
The celebrated problem of finding longitude by lunars (or by measurement of “lunar distances”) occupied the attention of astronomers and sailors for many years before being superseded by the more simple and accurate modern method by the use of chronometers, and was the principal reason for establishing the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and the subsequent publication of the Nautical Almanac. The principle was simple, depending upon the comparatively rapid movement of the moon with regard to the heavenly bodies lying in her immediate path in the heavens. It is evident that if the theory of this movement were perfectly understood and the positions of such heavenly bodies accurately determined, the distances of the moon from those at any instant of time at Greenwich could be accurately foretold so that if such predictions were published in advance, an observer at any place in the world, by simply measuring such distances, could accurately determine the Greenwich time, a comparison of which with the local time (which in clear weather can be frequently and simply determined) would give the longitude. This, as previously mentioned, was foreseen by J. Werner as early as 1514, but very great difficulties attended its practical application for many years. Until the establishment of national astronomical observatories it was impossible to accumulate the vast number of observations necessary to fufil the astronomical conditions, and until the invention of the sextant no instrument existed capable of use at sea which would measure the distances required with the necessary accuracy, while even up to the time when the problem had attained its greatest practical accuracy the calculations involved were far too intricate for general use among those for whom it was chiefly intended. The very principles of a theory of the movements of the moon were unknown before Newton’s time, when the lunar problem begins to have a chief place in the history of navigation; the places of stars were formerly derived from various and widely discrepant sources.
The study of the lunar problem was stimulated by the reward of 1000 crowns offered by Philip III. of Spain in 1598 for the discovery of a method of finding longitude at sea; the States-general followed with an offer of 10,000 florins. But for a long time nothing practical came of this; a proposal by J. B. Morin, submitted to Richelieu in 1633, was pronounced by commissioners appointed to judge of it to be impracticable through the imperfection of the lunar tables, and the same objection applied when the question was raised in England in 1674 by a proposal of St Pierre to find the longitude by using the altitudes of the moon and two stars to find the time each was from the meridian. When the king was pressed by St Pierre, Sir J. Moore and Sir C. Wren to establish an observatory for the benefit of navigation, and especially that the moon’s exact position might be calculated a year in advance, Flamsteed gave his judgment that the lunar tables then in use were quite useless, and the positions of the stars erroneous. The result was that the king decided upon establishing an observatory in Greenwich Park, and Flamsteed was appointed astronomical observer on March 4, 1675, upon a salary of £100 a year, for which also he was to instruct two boys from Christ’s Hospital. While the small building in the Park was in course of erection he resided in the Queen’s House (now the central part of Greenwich Hospital school), and removed to the house on the hill on the 10th of July 1676, which came to be known as “Flamsteed House.” The institution was placed under the surveyor-general of ordnance—perhaps because that office was then held by Sir Jonas Moore, himself an eminent mathematician. Though this was not the first observatory in Europe, it was destined to become the most useful, and has amply fulfilled the important duties for which it was
