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I am reading a book by a famous Russian XiX century
author, Goncharov, on his voyage to Japan in 1853/4.

(The Russians were trying to "open" Japan for trade
at that time, the same thing did the Americans (at exactly the same time).
Japan was "closed to foreigners"; no one could land
etc. I don't want to describe all details.
Anyway, the Russians were negotiating with the Japanese
authorities for a permission to land. The following episode
in this long and complicated negotiation, which lasted several
months, attracted my attention. The Russians asked for a
permission to land on some rock between their ship place
and the land. Apparently a small uninhabited island.
The reason they clamed for this permission was the
"Necessity to check chronometers".
Apparently they thought that this was a good reason
for landing on a rock).

Unfortunately the author of the book was not interested
in navigation and did not want to explain to the readers
this point. WHY did the Russians think that this was a
legitimate reason?

Why exactly did they need land to check their chronometers?
Or, more precisely, why did they think that "checking chronometers"
is a legitimate reason for a landing?

What was the proper procedure of "checking chronometers" they had in mind?
Was this by the Lunars?
Did they mean that a firm ground
is needed for the Lunars? Or Jupiter satellites? to install a powerful
telescope?

(They were at ancor in the Nagasaki harbor at that time. Nagasaki
was one of the few cities where foreigners were permitted to stay on ancor
at that time). To finish this part of the story I just say that they were
not permitted. The Japanese quickly built some structure on the rock,
as an evidence that this rock was "land", rather than some "rock in the
sea"
or "uninhabited (and unclaimed?) island" where anyone can land. Before
arriving
to Nagasaki, the Russians signed the paper that they will not land without
the permission of the authorities.)

But I only wanted to discuss the CelNav part of the story.
Why did the Russians think that "checking chronometers" was a legitimate
purpose of landing on a rock?

Alex.

P.S. I am well aware that the first underwater transoceanic cable layings
were made at about the same time. So the Lunars were doomed, already then,
even as a
mean
of checking chronometers:-(

   

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