Charles Mason's Bio

[RICHARD ROMEO]

from Dictionary of National Biography (1922 ed--not sure)

MASON, CHARLES (1730-1787), astronomer, was James Bradley's assistant (a 
prick according to John Harrison in _Longitude_) at Greenwich, with a 
salary of 26 pound a year, from 1756 to 1760.  He and Jeremiah Dixon were 
chosen by the Royal Society to observe the transit of Venus of 6 June 
1761, at Bencoolen in the island of Sumatra;  but H.M.S. Seahorse, in 
which they embarked in the autumn of 1760, was compelled by an attack 
from a French frigate to put back to Plymouth to refit, and they reached 
the Cape of Good Hope on 27 April, too late to proceed further.  They, 
however, successfully observed the transit there, and on 16 Oct reached 
St. Helens, where Mason co-operated with Nevil Maskelyne (another prick 
acc. to Harrison) until Dec 1761 in collecting tidal data...snip (M&D 
Line background)

Mason was employed by the Royal Society during six months in 1769 on an 
astronomical mission at Cavan in Ireland.  He observed the second transit 
of  Venus on 3 June, partial solar eclipse of 4 June, the phenomona of 
Jupiter's satellites, and in August and September the famous comet which 
signalised the birth year of Napoleon Bonaparte (anyone see a Napoleonic 
thread here?).  After a tour of the highlands of Scotland under the same 
auspices in the summer of 1773, he recommended Schiehallion as the 
subject of Maskelyne's experiments on gravity.  A catalogue of 387 stars, 
calculated by Mason from Bradley's observations, was annexed to the 
Nautical Almanac for 1773, and he corrected Mayer (german mathematician) 
"Lunar Tables', on behalf of the Board of Longitude (maskelyne as serving 
head), in 1772, 78, and 80.  Results of his comparisons with 1220 of 
Bradley's places of the moon were given in the "Nautical Almanac' for 
1774, and finally revised 'Tables', printed in London in 1787, continued 
long to be the best extant. (seems these astonomer types on the board of 
longitude were a bit biased, particularly Nevil, the old swot,  when it 
came to their profession namely the lunar method for determining 
longitude thus holding back folk like Harrison who developed the sea 
clock and its much ease of use)  Payment of 1,000 pund for the work fell 
far short, according to Lalande, of Mason's expectations.  He returned to 
America, and died in Philadelphia in 1787.  His journals were almost 
tossed, also found a certificate of admission into American Society of 
Philadelphia.  Dixon was reportedly born in a coal mine, died at Durham 
in 1777."

Richard Romeo
Coordinator of Cooperating Collections
The Foundation Center-NYC
212-807-2417
rromeo at fdncenter.org