By this time I think the reader may naturally exclaim, how can all these things be? What can
"in a very few years" his Timekeepers might be afforded for £100.[subnote 1] But it further appears, from his pamphlet on mechanism, that if those like the one which gained the reward, which was about five inches in diameter, had been attended with too much delay in the work, or were from different causes too expensive for general use, he had other resources for the public advantage. He is arguing on the palpable inferiority of the Lunar method (notwithstanding which, the Priests, as he calls the Professors, wanted to get the reward) and thus continues;—'I am sure, from my last improvement, that by or from the performance of a Watch of such a size as may be bore with in the pocket (but I should not advise for it always to be kept there)[subnote 2]—the Longitude may be had, and that to a much greater certainty or exactness, as well as with more ease and frequency, than ever it will, or can be by the Moon.' So that, allowing for subordinate contrivances between the one and the other watchmaker, the principles and the practice of John Harrison in chronometry are at present the main dependance of the mariner for finding his Longitude, and probably will continue so through many ages.—How and whence then arises the surprising incongruity that (sixty years after his death) no public monument exists, devoted to the memory of the scientific Client[subnote 3] patronized by George 3rd?—Is the
- ↑ He was the only person fitted to overcome these difficulties; as may be inferred from the fact, that when Mr. Mudge, junior, previously to his father's death, attempted to establish a manufactory of Timekeepers, at the price of one hundred and fifty guineas, the concern proved a losing one.
- ↑ It is not unlikely the hint was taken from this passage for chronometers, of a size for the pocket, to be frequently mounted in a box made on purpose, as is now the practice.
- ↑ The remains of John Harrison were consigned to a vault on the south side of Hampstead Church; but a difference of opinion arising between his Son and Daughter, on the subject of a monument, the place remained
