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Hewitt Schlereth asked-
| Has anyone searched Moby Dick for lunars, noon sight or sextant? If
| not, sounds like MD may be digitized and sitting somewhere searchable.
| How do I go about it?
|
| Hewitt

I don't recall Melville taking much interest in navigation, in Moby Dick,
perhaps for the reasons I put forward earlier, that a whaler is indifferent
to latitude and longitude. To be honest, I've never enjoyed reading Moby
Dick, on account of its flowery and allegorical language. I prefer direct
and simple writing.

But Hew's proposed search might turn up something of interest. I'm pretty
sure it will have been digitised. This is how I would go about such a
search, though it may not be the most efficient way-
In the Google search box, type in Google Books. Having got there, click on
"advanced search". This takes you to a form in which you can enter "Moby
Dick" as the title, and "Melville" as the author. It will give various
options for your search, and choose "full view", which will reject any
versions that have not been fully digitised. Then click Search.
You will then see any fully-digitised options: there may possibly be more
than one edition or version to choose from.
You can then scan down the pages, or choose particular pages to read, but
instead, you will want to enter "lunar" or perhaps "lunar*" (which will
embrace both lunar and also lunars) and click "search". It should then list
any occurrences of that word in the column on the right. However, that
searching action is not 100% accurate, depending as it does on
word-recognition using OCR (optical character recognition). Bit it's
remarkably good.

George.

contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.


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