NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Sextant calibration.
From: Wolfgang K�berer
Date: 2007 Apr 24, 07:42 +0200
From: Wolfgang K�berer
Date: 2007 Apr 24, 07:42 +0200
Frank Reed is right: The title page of the "Complete collection of tables for navigation and nautical astronomy..." gives the date as 1801. So, who can you trust these days, when even the British Library records provide false information. -----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht----- Von: NavList@fer3.com [mailto:NavList@fer3.com]Im Auftrag von Frank Reed Gesendet: Dienstag, 24. April 2007 05:18 An: NavList Betreff: [NavList 2675] Re: Sextant calibration. Wolfgang K�berer wrote: "Both Volumes of Mendoza's "Tratado de navegaci�n" (1797) are included in "Obras Cl�sicas de N�utica y Navegaci�n" - a CD-ROM containing the most important works on navigation (starting with the "Almanach Perpetuum" by Zacut - 1502) in the Spanish tongue. It is published by the "Fundaci�n HISTORICA TAVERA (ISBN 84-89763-14-3) and rather expensive, but considering that the original 33 works are scarce (so one will not find them on e- bay), the cost of the single work (price of the CD-ROM divided by 33) is still a bargain." Yes, I looked into that product, too. The pricing is as high as it is because it's really intended to be purchased by libraries. In effect, they're selling a site license. So, one good option, if you're looking for this CD, is to check with local university libraries. For me personally, it turned out that an actual copy of the Tratado was closer than the nearest library with the CD. For a while, there was a copy of the Tratado for sale on abebooks.com. If I remember correctly, the seller was offering it for $15,000 or so. That doesn't mean anyone bought it at that price, of course. By the way, I note a small typo: the Tratado de Navegacion was published in 1787, not 1797. And you wrote: "In Vol. 87 (1797) of the PTRS Mendoza y Rios published "Recherches sur les principaux Probl�mes de l' Astronomie Nautique" which might be a bit easier to tackle. It is available through JSTOR and Gallica, if my memory serves me well." A couple of years ago, I put a version of this (pages from Gallica) on my web site. It's here: www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars/myr For people with slower connections, this may be a better option. And: "As far as I can see Frank is right that his only publication in English is "A complete collection of tables for navigation and nautical astronomy with simple, concise, and accurate methods, for all the calculations useful at sea;..." (London 1805, not 1801 if the record of the British Library is right; Second edition, improved, London 1809)." The original edition is from 1801 (maybe there was a second printing in 1805 of the First Edition?). You can download the 1801 from googlebooks. This volume was simultaneously published in a Spanish version. As George H. already mentioned, Mendoza Rios also wrote an article for the Royal Society, in English, on the reflecting circle. The poor man committed suicide not too many years later. I will add that these three main works by Jose de Mendoza y Rios vary widely from each other. The "Tratado" was a complete epitome of practical navigation, rather like Moore, or later Bowditch, or Norie. It's filled with practical advice on sextant adjustment, cookbook accounts of the usual calculations of navigation, etc. The "Recherches" was a careful mathematical analysis of the various ways of approaching the solution of the problem of double altitudes and the problem of lunar distances. It is, in effect, a "taxonomy" of those mathematical solutions and a rough history of their development with only occasional references to practical navigation. The "Complete Collection of Tables" was just that: a set of mathematical tables with instructions on their use and almost nothing else. Although they were his greatest achievement in many respects, the "Tables" are probably the least interesting to examine today. -FER 42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W. www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars