Maskelyne, Aliens, Myth, Madness and Ecology; MD 134-5

[Mark Smith]

kellner at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu wrote of Nevil Maskelyne:

. Does anyone have
> any idea to what extent Pynchon is taking literary liberties with his
> construction of this highly interesting and complex character?

As far as I can gather, Maskelyne seems to have been a dullard of epic
proportions.  Quoting from Dava Sobel's book "Longitude", p. 112: 
"Maskelyne, who put off marrying until he was fifty-two, enslaved
himself to accurate observation and careful calculation.  He kept
records of everything, from astronomical positons to events in his
personal life (including each expenditure, large or small, over the
course of four-score years), and noted them all with the same detached
matter-of factness.  He even wrote his own autobiography in the third
person :'Dr. M,'.... "he seemed never to have been young.  Described by
a biographer early on as 'rather a swot' and 'a bit of a prig,'.." 
Sobel's book also chronicles the incredible mean spiritedness of the man
who was the main personification of the lunar distance method of
calculating longitude, and the extent Maskelyne went to in order to
prevent clockmaker John Harrison from claiming the prize.  

Maskelyne's Cambridge connections brought him into contact with Bradley,
the third Astronomer Royal and the two of them became prime movers in
furthering a longitude solution.  Maskelyne was part of the longitude
committee, which became a clear conflict of interest when John Harrison
was waiting for the committee to provide him with a ship, so that he
could prove his method worthy.  In the summer of 1761 William Harrison
(son of John) was awaiting sailing orders in Portsmouth in what was to
be the definitive test of the timekeeping method of measuring longitude.
He was kept waiting five months, and was not allowed out of port until
October! Harrison's father had already stunned the Board of Longitude as
early as 1737 and the 1741-42 report of the Royal Society praised
Harrison's timepiece profusely.  At this same time Bradley and Maskelyne
were attempting to claim the prize money of twenty thousand pounds
sterling (a king's ransom), using the lunar method, while influencing
the operation of the Board of Longitude from within.

"William suspected that Dr. Bradley had deliberately delayed the trial
for his personal gain.  By holding up the Harrison trial, Bradley could
buy time for Maskelyne to produce proof positive supporting the lunar
distance method.  This may sound like a paranoid delusion on William's
part, but he had evidence of Bradley' own interest in the longitude
prize.  In a diary, William had recorded how he and his father chanced
to encounter Dr. Bradley at an instrument maker's shop, where they
incurred his obvious antagonism: 'The Doctor seemed very much out of
temper,' noted William, 'and in the greatest passion told Mr. Harrison
that if it had not been for him and his plaguey watch, Mr. Mayer and he
should have shared Ten Thousand Pounds before now.'"  

There is ample evidence elsewhere in this excellent book of Maskelyne's
single minded devotion to his own causes at the expense of fair play.  
In short, I do not see such a close relationship between Pynchon's
Maskelyne and the historical one. 
-- 
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