NavList:

Thank you Frank for your answer. Just a few informations more. In France, the question of navigation tables is doctrinal. In general, and particularly at the end of the 19th century, official french maritime education and training (in the navy as well as in the merchant service) have always favored the use of pure log tables (five or six-figure) to solve the formulae of spherical trigonometry. The use of different kind of "short" tables, conceived to attempt a reduction of the length of the calculation, was not really allowed. It's probably the main reason of the failure of Pouvreau's tables. In France, the same can be observed for Guyou's tables (1884), Souillagouët's tables (1891) and Delafon's tables (1894) and the first "short" tables really successful was Bertin's tables first published just after WWI.

Going back to Martelli my questions are: who was Martelli ? was the name "Martelli" a pen-name ? Were Martelli and Pouvreau the same person ? (I don't think so) ... Have Pouvreau duplicated Martelli's tables ? But Pouvreau doesn't mention Martelli in his explanations so did they work totally independantly ?

All informations are welcome. Have a nice sunday.

Paul.