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I have bought three or four old navigation books off of www.abe.com
bookstores.

A 1798 John Hamilton Moore "New Practical Navigator", an 1807 Andrew
Mackay,
"Complete Navigator, and an 1844 J.W. Norie, "A Complete Epitome of
Practical
Navigation". None of them were super expensive. Why? Binding warped,
page missing,
a page torn, title page ripped out ( 1798 More ) and so on.

The books that run $1,000 to $5,000 are no doubt in top condition, or
owned
by somebody famous. ( Long John Silver's Nav book ) or something.

My books are completely readable and it is really kind of fun seeing how
they
worked out their nav problems. Trig is introduced in an equivalent, but
entirely
different way then modern texts. The change came about between 1850 or
60 and 1910
or so.

It is also a real kick to look at the doodles and notes some one made
over
150 to 200 years ago.

On one of the blank pages in the Moore book, someone wrote a short verse
and
signed it, "Carpenter of the J. Henary ( or Henry not sure ), John
Newbrums
( or Newborn ? ) 1806.

I am not use to reading that fancy old hand writing, but it is really
cool.
I wish people wrote like that today.


Bowditch, is no doubt the most famous of the old navigation books. And
for the
name alone it would command a higher price, but I don't know if it is
really any
better than Mackay or esp. Norie.

I found out that they borrowed to put it nicely from each other. Tables,
problems,
and so on.

All three books have a "Journal of a Voyage from London to Madeira and
Teneriffe" as a kind of "Final Exam". I think Bowditch does too.

-- Gordon

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| Gordon Talge WB6YKK               e-mail: gtalge@pe.net    |
| Department of Mathematics       http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us |
| Wilson High School                  Long Beach, CA         |
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