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Christmas is coming, the time of year when navigational bookworms hint to 
their wives and mistresses about what they would like to see in their 
stockings.

Gary has recently commended Bill Morris' new book, "The Nautical Sextant", 
and a few weeks back copied a mention of it, found in "Ocean Navigator". 
Frank Reed has posted about it, and it's recently had favourable mention in 
"rete" (a mailing list mainly addressed to curators of science-museums), 
which I will copy below. So the word is getting around, and it's time for 
me to add my own few ha'porth, as it's now available in bookshops around 
the World.

=================

The evolution of this book has been closely tied up with Navlist, since 
Bill Morris started to post here a few years back, as "Engineer". Sections 
of text and pictures were tried out first on us Navlist readers, and it was 
clear from the start that here were something special. A man who knew what 
he was talking about, who wrote well with perceptive insight,  knew how to 
illustrate it with clear photos, and who relished going into detail.

I like to think that the reception he found here give him encouragement, 
with the result that a couple of years back he assembled those pages into 
an e-book on CD, with the titillating title of "The Naked Nautical Sextant 
and its Intimate Anatomy". At this stage, I had a small involvement, asked 
to do a bit of error-checking. I found that it not only provided the detail 
I needed about specific instruments, but also provided a fascinating read 
about stuff that I had never even realised I wanted to know about.

The only real criticsm I could offer, at that stage, was that it had to be 
read off a computer screen (unless laboriously printed out). That's alright 
for reading the odd few pages, but I hate having to read more than that 
on-creen. I like printed text. On the other hand, on-screen reading did 
justice to Bill's photo-illustrations, because they were good enough to be 
magnified a few times, and needed that to show the necessary detail on a 
screen.

Published on CD, it came to the attention of listmember Ken Gebhart, who 
runs Celestaire, which stocks a wide range of navigational titles. Ken has 
encouraged, initiated, and published (in association with Paradise Key) 
other specialist navigational titles, and he spotted the potential of this 
one to appear in print.

I was keen to see it as a printed book, but a bit worried about whether the 
print quality would be good enough. With a colour picture on nearly every 
page, it wasn't going to be a cheap product, and needed to be given good 
resolution, to make up for the lack of a "zoom" button on the printed page.

I need not have worried. The end-product, which appeared recently under the 
somewhat-less-sexy title "The Nautical Sextant", shows up the necessary 
detail nicely on its many colour pictures. With a decent page-size of 18 x 
26cm, 247 pages, hardback, it more than justifies its (Amazon) price tag of 
around $26, or £23, post paid.

With sextants, which superficially seem so similar between various models, 
the devil is in the details, and Bill relishes detail. He explains not just 
how they differ, but why they differ, and the tradeoffs that went into the 
design. Although it's not written as a history, the development, from 
Newton through Hadley, from octant to sextant, is thoughtfully treated. The 
principles are carefully explained, with good line-diagrams and 
ray-diagrams.

Be aware that this book is about just what its title says, "The Nautical 
Sextant" To find out about air sextants, say, or artificial horizons, you 
will have to look elsewhere, such as Peter Ifland's "Taking the Stars", or 
perhaps hope that Bill may be working on a companion volume. Somewhat to my 
regret, plastic sextants are bypassed.

The setting-up adjustments that a sextant user needs to know about, are all 
explained here, fully and carefully, but the user won't find much in the 
way of practical advice about actually using it in anger at sea for finding 
a position. Bill makes no pretence to be anything other than a landsman. I 
would love to take him to sea, as a shipmate in a small craft in brisk 
weather, with a few sextants to try out, to discover whether his 
assessments survive that school of hard knocks.

His book, I'm sure, will last for many years as a classic, there being 
nothing like it around.

===================

Navlist members might like to read an appreciation of Bill's book in 
another mailing-list, "rete" (which is aimed, mostly, at science-museum 
professionals), from Rich Paselk, who wrote on 25 Nov-

"Those of you who know me know of my interests in the how of instrument 
manufacture. With this in mind I want to make note of a book and website 
that may have come up before, but is new to me.

The Book is:

W.J. Morris. "The  Nautical Sextant" Paradise Cay Publications, Arcata, CA 
(2010)

The web  page that I particularly enjoyed is:

http://sextantbook.com/category/evolution-of-sextant-parts/

The great thing about both is that Bill explains both historical 
developments and sextant design from the point of view of an instrument 
maker-engineer/instrument repairman. This is not a historical study, but 
Bill frequently puts design and material considerations into historical 
perspective and his insights into instrument design etc. are wonderful 
(e.g. the advantages disadvantages of frame materials in the web article 
above).

Although the book and website are specific to the sextant, folks interested 
in other instruments may also find some of his insights of value since 
instrument makers generally used similar skills and techniques across their 
product lines. "

============

I agree completely with Rich.

George.

contact George Huxtable, at george{at}hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. 

   

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