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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Ted Gerrard's book
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Nov 14, 21:58 -0500
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Nov 14, 21:58 -0500
Ted sent me a copy of his book, in trade for a copy of my historical atlas software. I've been reading through it for a few days now. It's fascinating. I find something intriguing on almost every page. I would not say that I agree with ALL of his conclusions, but that does not detract from the book's value in any way. The prose is breezy and clear, and there are plenty of useful diagrams, including one that is intriguingly labeled "A drawing of the author's working model of Newton's brass marine octant." Got a photo for us, Ted?? :-) The only real flaw I have found so far is that the references are a little sparse. For one example, he mentions that one Mary Mumford, resident of the Scillies, confessed on her deathbed to possessing Sir Cloudesley Shovell's large emerald ring. How do we know it was "Mary Mumford" and what was the source for that? I also noticed a certain parallel to Sobel's story when approaching the "bad guy" problem. Dava Sobel, in her book, wrote, "A story that hails a hero must also hiss at a villain --in this case, the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne." While Ted Gerrard, in his book, writes, "If this story must have a villain to balance the heroic qualities of Halley, Cloudesley Shovell is the man who best fits the part." Just so we're clear here, I'm not suggesting any sort of direct influence, just a parallel approach to history, an approach that may get one into trouble. Heroes and villains? All of us mortals are flawed, imperfect beings. As a teaser, I'll quote a paragraph from the back cover of the book: "Sir Isaac Newton never mentioned his only invention again and Captain Edmond Halley, RN, never published any details of how he determined either latitude or longitude on any of his voyages of discovery aboard Paramore. He did however publish a warning to mariners over the incorrect location of the Scilly Isles - a warning his commander-in-chief Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell foolishly ignored." For general inerest, I'm attaching a copy of the actual pages which include the warning about the latitude of the Scillies as published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1701/02. Ted's theory, that Shovell "foolishly ignored" this refined latitude, makes sense only if Shovell did NOT believe his vessels were in a different longitude. That is, if he had NO firm idea of his vessels' longitude, or if he believed his longitude might be rather close to the longitude of the Scillies, then of course he would have avoided ANY reported latitude for the Scillies. But if he believed his longitude placed him a day's sail or more to the west of the Scillies, then it's a different matter altogether. A commander orders his ships to sail into stormy darkness only if he believes he's nowhere near land --unless he's an idiot, which, I admit, is always a possibility. -FER http://www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---