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Dear Frank,

Browsing the links I found that there are at least two
SUBSTANTIALLY different versions of this book.
One has 434 pages, another more than 800.
The longer version is usually associated with
the name Allingham, editor, and I found it as early as
in 1910.
Unfortunately, many sellers do not care to tell which edition
they are selling. After some thought I decided to buy
the 1919 expanded edition, rather than the original 1881
one. Of course it is possible that they did the same
as they did to Bowditch, adding the new information and
removing "out of date" parts.
But this is impossible to know.

I payed $20 for the 1919 expanded edition, and if I find
that they removed much of the original I will consider
buying an older one as well:-)

With some difficulties I read few pages from the screen, and I share
your opinion that the book is great.
I just cite one random passage:

"It is as easy to be deceived in purchasing a sextant
as in buying a horse.
The market is glutted with sextants MADE FOR SALE
(Lecky's emphasis) Every pawnbroker's window in a seaport
towen is half full of them. Some wendors even hold out the
inducement in large type that their instruments are
"free from error".
:-)

Alex

On Sun, 3 Dec 2006, Frank Reed wrote:

>
>
> "Amazon shows a paperback reprint for $24.  Might be cheaper than the
> ink to print it yourself. "
>
> Well, if you really want a hardcopy, you may want to wait for a 19th
> century original. I've got one in front of me that I bought for about
> $18 a few years ago. They turn up on ebay and abebooks.com now and
> then. In fact, I may even put mine on ebay, now that the complete text
> is on google books. Note that there is an important advantage to
> reading it there. Hidden behind the images, there is an OCR text
> version which can be searched, though since it's OCR text, it's not
> perfect. Where it says "search in this book", try typing something like
> "moon and weather". Sure enough, it finds page 175 and Lecky's
> skeptical, yet forgiving, comments on this "popular delusion" (which
> really was very common in the 19th century).
>
> -FER
>
>
> >


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