NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: ? ? ? Re: Mid XIX century ? Nav
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2005 Nov 20, 16:08 EST
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2005 Nov 20, 16:08 EST
Henry,
You wrote:
Nevertheless, as I briefly posted previously, conventional wisdom would
require knowledge of Longitude for the rating of chronometers by the
usual methods available to seamen.
Perhaps our difference here has to do with words. The way I take it from the nineteenth-century navigation manuals, to "rate" a chronometer is to determine how much it is gaining or losing per day, without regard to a particular meridian. To "regulate" it is to find out how fast or slow it is on the time at a specific meridian, your own, Greenwich, or whatever.
Like so much else, the meanings of those words must have changed between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Bruce
You wrote:
Nevertheless, as I briefly posted previously, conventional wisdom would
require knowledge of Longitude for the rating of chronometers by the
usual methods available to seamen.
Perhaps our difference here has to do with words. The way I take it from the nineteenth-century navigation manuals, to "rate" a chronometer is to determine how much it is gaining or losing per day, without regard to a particular meridian. To "regulate" it is to find out how fast or slow it is on the time at a specific meridian, your own, Greenwich, or whatever.
Like so much else, the meanings of those words must have changed between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Bruce