NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: H.O. 203/204, Littlehales, Hydrographic Engineer
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2017 Mar 23, 20:22 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2017 Mar 23, 20:22 -0700
The chapter is a fairly complete review of most of the methods of sight reduction used and proposed over the previous 190 years.
No, it isn't. Not even remotely "complete". No one should treat a 20th-century Bowditch as a competent account of the history of navigation. Bowditch is an encyclopedia with all of the same problems that afflict any encyclopedia. There is no reason to expect competent historical research in that book, especially because there was no benefit to the state-funded creators and editors of that work in producing competent historical research.
Frank Reed
