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    Re: Navigation and whaling
    From: Frank Reed
    Date: 2009 Feb 18, 22:59 -0800

    Brad, you wrote: 
    "Argument Side Two: All log books show careful navigation."
    
    I would say it his way: the great majority of log books on ordinary whaling 
    vessels show normal ocean navigation. I've already mentioned two significant 
    exceptions, specifically coastal whaling and to some extent ocean whaling 
    when they were on the "whaling grounds". And there's overlap: sometimes 
    whaling vessels would sail halfway around the world just to sail along a 
    coast where there was good hunting. 
    
    And you wrote:
    "the fundamental argument that all captains must have navigated because all 
    log books show navigation fails the logic test."
    
    Ah, logic. It's the mathematician's friend and the historian's enemy. History 
    has the annoying habit of being most illogical! :-) Of course, almost all of 
    us who take an interest in the history of navigation are students of math, 
    science, and engineering first, and "historians" second and in only a limited 
    way. We've all learned the lesson of mathematical logic that it takes only a 
    single counter-example to disprove any theorem. But what you discover in 
    history is that there are counter-examples to every statement. That's not 
    because there are no useful statements that we can make about history. It's 
    because history is diverse and there are exceptions to every rule. It is 
    decidedly NOT logical. So if you can find one single exception, it doesn't 
    mean you throw out the statement.
    
    But let's consider your logical argument. It hinges on the speculation of the 
    existence of at least a few and maybe a bunch of illiterate captains (and all 
    of his officers would have to be illiterate, too, since the logbook could be 
    kept by any of them). So... anyone know why this would be extremely 
    unlikely?? Hint: why did they keep logbooks anyway?
    
    
    "I am finding it difficult to find the truth in the definition of navigation 
    here.  Is the implication that the whaling captains did not determine 
    latitude?  Are we just discussing the determination of the longitude?  With 
    the regular trade betwixt the old world and the new, well prior to the 
    solving of the longitude, it is clear that captains were navigating without 
    this determination.  Are we saying that those captains did not navigate?"
    
    Anything you do to determine your position in latitude and longitude COUNTS as 
    navigation. In the nineteenth century, they kept their latitude every day, 
    mostly using Noon Sun but occasionally using stars and exotic sights. For 
    longitude, on American merchant vessels, before 1835 (VERY roughly) longitude 
    was determined by dead reckoning with checks by lunars now and then, and 
    after 1835 longitude was determined by chronometer with checks by lunars now 
    and then (though lunars rapidly disappeared at sea after 1850). Even in the 
    latter half of the nineteenth century, some captains still used dead 
    reckoning for longitude and apparently they did so with some skill.
    
    Finally, just to set some terms on the history of this, it's worth 
    distinguishing a few periods of American whaling. There was relatively little 
    ocean whaling before about 1835. There was a huge boom, often known as "peak 
    whaling" during the 1840s and 1850s -- let's extend that a little and make it 
    1835 to 1865. And then there was a gradual decline and transition in whaling 
    during the late 19th century (due to the discovery of petroleum in 1859 and 
    also do the significant losses of the Yankee whaling fleet during the Civil 
    War). Let's extend that somewhat different whaling epoch to 1900. And there's 
    the limited small-scale whaling that occurred after 1900 until the end of 
    traditional whaling about 1925. So for the sake of this discussion, I'm gonna 
    refer to these periods in American whaling:
    1) Early Whaling: before 1835
    2) Peak Whaling: 1835-1865
    3) Post-war Whaling: 1865-1900
    4) Late Whaling: 1900-1925
    
    The style and quality of navigation varies in these different periods. In 
    which of these periods would you look to find a functionally illiterate 
    whaling captain? The Charles W. Morgan had one (who still kept a logbook, by 
    the way). Maybe it's surprising that this was in the Late Whaling period...
    
    -FER
    PS: I may be a while answering posts this week. Trying to get some work done..
    
    
    
    
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