NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: ? ? ? David Thompson's Navi gational Technique
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2004 May 28, 14:41 EDT
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2004 May 28, 14:41 EDT
Ken,
Your posting came in just as I signed on to send a note on Lewis & Clark. I've printed it off, since it will be of long-term interest. I read it down to where you say:
" . . . the way these navigators of old approached the subjects of time and computation are so foreign to our modern way of thinking, that only careful recreation of their methods can capture their mindset (and their accomplishment)."
Boy! I'm in absolute and enthusiastic agreement with you there! As long as researchers continue to butcher the old nautical astronomy and force-fit it into twentieth-century logic, the history of navigation will continue to be shot-through with nonsense.
That concern prompted me to write up the "Tin Clock and Sextant" observations for last winter's Navigators Newsletter. It's also one of the reasons I use the old Nautical Almanac and old-fashioned trig-log tables to work Lewis & Clark's observations.
I've started working L & C's June 3d, 1804 lunars, and want to get that done before studying your post. Time is running out on the 200th anniversary of those L&C observations.
Bruce
Your posting came in just as I signed on to send a note on Lewis & Clark. I've printed it off, since it will be of long-term interest. I read it down to where you say:
" . . . the way these navigators of old approached the subjects of time and computation are so foreign to our modern way of thinking, that only careful recreation of their methods can capture their mindset (and their accomplishment)."
Boy! I'm in absolute and enthusiastic agreement with you there! As long as researchers continue to butcher the old nautical astronomy and force-fit it into twentieth-century logic, the history of navigation will continue to be shot-through with nonsense.
That concern prompted me to write up the "Tin Clock and Sextant" observations for last winter's Navigators Newsletter. It's also one of the reasons I use the old Nautical Almanac and old-fashioned trig-log tables to work Lewis & Clark's observations.
I've started working L & C's June 3d, 1804 lunars, and want to get that done before studying your post. Time is running out on the 200th anniversary of those L&C observations.
Bruce
