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Dear George,
I am sorry for being imprecise. I wrote:

> | Available on the web.

while I should had written:
They WERE available on the web for free, but now
available only by subscription to the
"XVIII Century Collection".

I mean about a year ago, Frank mentioned on this list
of the "XVIII century collection" which
was available on the web. It was discussed on this list
for some time, it contains all old almanacs, complete
Cook's expedition astronomical observations logs,
and hundreds of other navigation-related items.
It was available for free for limited time,
and people rushed to download these things.

But if you missed this and if you want to have
Cook's expedition logs, I can try to e-mail you
the files. Moreover, I can send you a list of all
items I downloaded then
and will be glad to share any of them.
(IN fact, Purdue subscribes to this collection,
so when I was writing I forgot that it is
not available for free to all anymore).

> Were they derived from William Wales' "Astronomical Observations ...", that
> I suggested Alex might consult, I wonder?

I'll post the list of what I have.
I am surprised that you did not download them when
they were freely available and were much
discussed on this list.

> Please, Alex, tell us a bit more about Terraserver,
> and give the address at
> which it can be found.

About Terraserver I also learned from this list
(and also from Frank's postings). The address is:
www.terraserver.com
It gives you nice satellite photos of various scale
where you can measure exact coordinates with your mouse.
Not all Earth is covered but most of it is.
Wonderful thing!
There is another thing like this called Google Earth,
but I prefer terraserver.

> Ah. Where, on map 9, had such observations been noted?

I am sorry, the maps are not with me.
They are in the special collections department of
Purdue libraries. To answer any specific questions
about the maps I have to go and get them.

> that the same charge was made to buyers within the
> US. That all leaves a sour taste.

I payed slightly less for delivery because it was
an "institutional address":-)
But delivery charges is not my main complain.
My main complains are two:
1. Most papers are unprintable.
(I mean protected from printing!)
2. Most papers are of very little or no interest (to me)
and their scientific standard is low.
(Of course, this is subjective).
So far I found only about 10 papers worth looking at,
and even of those 1/2 were disappointing.

> Alex has concentrated, very hard,
> on a single (important) question,
> that of observational precision. I am
> delighted to note that he is now expanding
> his interests into navigational
> history, and I hope that will grip him

George, this is not exactly so.
If you look at the records of the "Old NavList",
you can see that history was one of my main interests
from the very beginning, since I joined the old list.
How many interesting papers on history did you find
in the Institute of Navigation CD?

> Things are changing, in the right direction.

I strongly disagree. That the free access to scientific
information (which was a tradition in
the Western culture for the last 300 years) changes
in the "right direction".
This contradicts to all my experience.
With the advent of the web, just the opposite happens.
But this is outside of the scope of this list.

> I wonder if any of Alex's
> mathematical publications have ever
> appeared in a journal which charges a
> cover price?

Let me say that I never payed the cover price,
well perhaps with only one exception.
Some journals where I publish indeed have it (nominally)
but they wave it oif the author does not want to pay.
And I almost never payed.

> if he sends me his postal address

My postal address is
Department of Mathematics
Purdue University
150 N University street
West Lafayette, IN
47907-2067 USA.

>I will be pleased to post a scanned copy.

Thanks a lot.

Alex.


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