MDMD[5] p. 155 (Clocks amd Time)

[Mark Smith]

David Braden Wrote:

> Before the clock, longitude could only be determined by tricky mathematical
> calculations based on the moon (discovered, in fact by Maskelyne!).  

I'm not so sure "discovered" is the right word here.  Maskelyne was
working with lunar tables recently compiled by a German mapmaker, Tobias
Mayer.  Mayer produced the first set of tables for positions of the moon
at 12 hour intervals (and his widow was awarded #3000 by the Board of
Longitude when he died in 1762, in recognition of his contribution).  

Another piece of the navigational jigsaw used by Maskelyne was John
Flamsteed's star catalog.  In 1712, Newton and Halley grew impatient
with Flamsteed's meticulous data collection, got hold of the star
catalog Flamsteed had been working on for 40 years, and published 400
copies of it.  Flamsteed subsequently collected 300 of those copies and
burned them because he wanted them to be more complete before
publication. By then, however, they had gone somewhat "public domain".

What Maskelyne did was use Hadley's quadrant and Mayer's tables to
determine his longitude at sea.  Later (in 1766) he produced the first
"Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris."  "By incorporating a
wealth of prefigured data, he [Maskelyne] would reduce the number of
arithmetical calculations the individual navigator had to make, and
thereby dramatically shorten the time required to arrive at a position -
from four hours to about thirty nimutes." ("Longitude", by Dava Sobel,
p. 134).  Maskelyne continued to supervise this publication until his
death in 1811, for which all mariners hailed him as their Astronomer
Royal.  However, for all Maskelyne's push to popularize it, the lunar
distance method was destined to become the beta-max method of
calculating longitude, superceded eventually by the simpler and more
reliable clock method of calculation.

I don't think the phase "time is money" is so relevant to this
discussion of the importance of the talking clocks, btw - it's not
really a capitalist thing here. The clocks are connected intimately with
the ocean and the measuring of longitude, and so perhaps "time is
navigation" would be more appropriate.  Eventually one might add
"navigation is money" (conquest, Clive of India, etc.), but it's not a
labor issue, more of a power issue.  That the vast and mysterious ocean
could be cut up into manageable grids through the use of accurate
timepieces is an immensely important scientific issue.  

Beechnut Review	http://www.traverse.com/beechnut
"Go bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,/Which, like unruly children,
make their sire/Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight."