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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
An observatory for Manhattan (in 1859)
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Nov 04, 22:31 -0500
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2007 Nov 04, 22:31 -0500
Found this item via newspaperarchive.com (a subscription site, very useful): In the New York Times on February 4, 1859 there was an article discussing the possibility of building an observatory in New York City, specifically Manhattan for the advancement of navigation. A member of the observatory committee was paraphrased as saying, "in view of the importance now attached to the chronometer for navigating our ships, New York ought to have as good an Observatory as any other port in the world" and "every consideration existed for having the chronometers of our ship masters as perfect as possible. The old mode of studying navigation had died out and there were too few captains who could take a lunar observation. Commodore Perry stated to him that not one lunar observation was taken on his way to Japan." -FER http://www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
