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George,

It was a delight to read of your success with the Hydrographic Office.

Regarding Sumner, I wonder whether this falsification is related to
his subsequent insanity.

Regardless, he did further navigation.

Fred

On Apr 1, 2006, at 7:17 PM, George Huxtable wrote:

> | Bill asked, several weeks ago now, in a thread labelled "Simple
> celestial navigation in 1897"-
> |
> || Back to Sumner, I eagerly await the results of George's
> inquiries into
> || Small's/Smalls (and other?) "migrating" lighthouse(s).  It was
> clearly IMHO
> || within the abilities of civil engineers to erect such a
> structure on a
> || submerged shoal or foundation circa Smalls # 2.  Is relocation
> the case, or
> || were there measurement problems?
>
> I have tried to get information about the earlier incarnation of
> the Smalls lighthouse from Trinity
> House, the lighthouse authority for English waters. They have
> proved a dead loss, in spite of
> several nudgings and promises.
>
> So I've been to the mailing-list of the Royal Institute of
> Navigation, at rinforum@rin.org.uk   and
> had an immediate response from Malcolm Tennant, who kindly responded-
>
> ==============
>
> Current position according to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office
> (UKHO)is 5143.27N, 540.19W.
> Information on earlier positions of the light will be available in the
> UKHO Archives but there may be a charge for research.
>
> Make your request to research@ukho.gov.uk
>
> Rgds
>
> Mal Tennant
> Head of Sailing Directions
> +44 (0)1823-337900 x 3382
> mal.tennant@ukho.gov.uk
>
> ============
>
> So I did just that, and the following day a collection of scans of
> the relevant parts of several old
> charts and surveys, of the Sumner era, arrived, without any charge,
> from -
>
> Guy Hannaford
> Archives Research Manager
> UK Hydrographic Office
> Taunton
> Somerset
> TA1 2DN
> UK
> Tel: 01823 337900 Ext 3409
> Guy.Hannaford@UKHO.gov.uk
>
> I provide these details because it's such a pleasant change to have
> a prompt, efficient, and
> relevant response from a government organisation. Nav-L members
> might like to be aware of the
> service that's available. I think I was quite lucky to get away
> without being charged; perhaps
> because the query was of interest to them. If anyone wants it, I
> have a copy of their "terms of
> trading".
>
> ================
>
> The end-result of all this is to prove what I had suspected; that
> the old Smalls lighthouse that
> Sumner saw, and its replacement in 1861, are within a few feet of
> the same spot on the same rock,
> the only rock that's always above sea level. And it's all of 5
> miles away from the spot that Sumner
> showed it on his sketch map. Unless Sumner happened to possess a
> chart or light-list that showed the
> light 5 miles North of where it really was, it seems that he
> falsified the position of the light so
> as to make a more dramatic story out of the first "Sumner line". In
> my eyes, that rather diminishes
> the stature of Captain Thomas Sumner.
>
> George.
>
> ===============
>
> contact George Huxtable at george@huxtable.u-net.com
> or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
> or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.

   

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