
NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: mechanical chronometers
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2006 May 18, 04:54 -0500
Frank,
> While it's certainly possible that it's true, this is a secondary source,
> and it would be nice to see some confirmation from a source written in that
> period. Did the author cite a source for the information?
No, unfortunately he does not cite any specific source for this sentence.
But in general there is a long list of references to this chapter
in Morison's book, some item in this list might be
his source, but it is a big project to search all of them:-( In general it
looks
like a very scholarly book, about half of the book consists of
notes and references,
so it is hard to believe that he just made up these numbers.
Alex.
P.S. This is in contrast with some statements of Dava Sobel,
that the French started to produce their own chronometers
immediately after they learned about Harrison. This is not
in direct contradiction with Morison though.
In general I am inclined to trust Morison more than Sobel:-)
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From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2006 May 18, 04:54 -0500
Frank,
> While it's certainly possible that it's true, this is a secondary source,
> and it would be nice to see some confirmation from a source written in that
> period. Did the author cite a source for the information?
No, unfortunately he does not cite any specific source for this sentence.
But in general there is a long list of references to this chapter
in Morison's book, some item in this list might be
his source, but it is a big project to search all of them:-( In general it
looks
like a very scholarly book, about half of the book consists of
notes and references,
so it is hard to believe that he just made up these numbers.
Alex.
P.S. This is in contrast with some statements of Dava Sobel,
that the French started to produce their own chronometers
immediately after they learned about Harrison. This is not
in direct contradiction with Morison though.
In general I am inclined to trust Morison more than Sobel:-)
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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To unsubscribe, send email to NavList-unsubscribe@fer3.com
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