NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Classification of the methods for clearing the LunarDistances
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2003 Apr 11, 03:21 +0000
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2003 Apr 11, 03:21 +0000
Hello George, A so called "New edition" appeared already in 1874 in London at Lockwood & co. ( x, 282 p. 1 illus., diagrs.). Chances are, you have a reprint of this. If there were truly another new edition in 1903, it should give the name of the editor, as John Radford Young died in 1885. Cotter refers to a book from 1856 titled "Practical Astronomy, Navigation and Nautical Astronomy". I cannot locate it in any catalog. This might be the first edition or the base of the above. If so, the publishers did not try to cheat: Instead of updating the contents, they changed the title, indicating that the text was not practical anymore. Best regards Herbert Prinz George Huxtable wrote: > > I have recently acquired a copy of "Navigation and Nautical Astronomy", by > J R Young ("formerly professor of mathematics in Belfast College"). This > copy was published as one of "Weale's Scientific and Technical series", > "New Edition 1903". [...] > > The surprise was in the date for these examples and extracts, > which was 1858, 45 years earlier. It became clear that the 1903 "new > edition" was based on an earlier edition of the 1850s, in which the > examples had not been updated. > > Delving into the contents provided further surprises. There was no mention > of position lines, or Sumner, or St Hilaire's "New Navigation", which dates > from 1875. Finding a ship's position was described entirely in terms of > obtaining the latitude and then, separately, the longitude: the techniques > of a generation of navigators, long before that "new edition" of 1903. It > appears that little or nothing had been updated for that "new edition". > > It seems to me something of a scandal that such a text should have been > peddled at that date, presumably to aspiring navigators who wished to learn > their craft from it. It's relevance in 1903 was largely historical. No > wonder the poor fellows got confused.