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This is in response to Paul Middents' June 14th posting.

There's a bit of drama behind that article in the Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society by Richard Preston. If you have back issues of the
Navigation Foundation's Newsletter, start with issue 63 to see how it
unfolded.

Preston had finished the article, sent it in, and had it accepted by the
editor of The Proceedings. At that point he found, in correspondence with the
Navigation Foundation, that one of the central ideas of his article for the
Philosophical Society wouldn't wash: It would have been virtually impossible
for Hassler to have been unaware of the use of calculated altitudes in
clearing lunars. Preston discovered he'd been misled by incomplete documents.

The way he handled it, without bitterness or recriminations, was beautiful.
He barely had time to alter the article to downplay the part about calculated
altitudes. But in private correspondence I, and probably many others,
encouraged him to let his article be published whether or not it was
technically unassailable in all details.

Preston also wrote a number of articles and letters for the Navigator's
Newsletter. My favorite is in Issue #68: "Artificial Horizons, Octants, and
Back Observations as Used by Lewis and Clark." The drawings are excellent.
Among other things they make it clear how the Captains got their latitude
from noon altitudes when the angle between the sun and its refection in the
artificial horizon was beyond the range of a sextant.

In the last issue of the Newsletter, # 74, Mrs. Angela Preston reported the
death of her husband. She said he had taught her to appreciate its contents,
and continued the subscription in his memory.

Bruce

   

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