MDDM Last Transit Ch. 74 (cont.)

[jbor]

725.24 the new Comet

One of the 44 discovered by Charles Messier.

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/xtra/history/m-comets.html

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/xtra/history/44comets.html

726.6 Finger of Corsica

Napoléon Bonaparte was another individual who thought comets were important
in his life. He was born in 1769 when a great comet was in the sky. Several
of his 60 battles were won when comets were in the sky and Bonaparte
apparently became friends with Charles Messier, one of the most successful
comet hunters in the history of France. There are references who claim the
Great Comet of 1811 was in the sky when Bonaparte was making the decision to
attack Russia. This was taken as a good sign and Bonaparte attacked and
subsequently lost one of the biggest battles of his career.

http://comets.amsmeteors.org/comets/lcomets/hbhysteria.html

726.5-11 Mason here seems to be "channelling" Charles Messier. (NB the
equation between Bonaparte and Jesus Christ as "an Infant that must, again,
re-make the World")

On August 8, 1769, Messier discovered a new comet (1769 Messier, the Great
Comet of that year). He sent a description and a map of this comet's
discovery to the King of Prussia, who was so impressed that under his
influence, Messier was made a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

[...]

In his older days, Charles Messier finally came to a certain portion of
honor when Napoleon himself, in 1806, presented him the Cross of the Legion
of Honor. In turn, the old man Messier ruined much of his scientific
reputation by an elaborated memoir, devoting the great comet of 1769 to
Napoleon, who had been born that year; thus he became probably the last
serious scientist who claimed that comets announce events on earth, or as
Admiral Smyth put it: "The last comet put astrologically before the public
by an orthodox astronomer".

http://www.messiermarathon.com/about.htm

727.22 "a '*Péché Mortel*.' One of Mr Chippendale's ... "

Peche Mortel:
An easy chair made in similar fashion to a Duchesse with a Bergere Chair
fastened to a stool of the same height to form a daybed.

728.2 acidick Rose upon Celadon  NB another variation on the magenta and
green combination

728.9 the subcontinental genius, Mr. Deep, and his talented crew  ?

728.18 the Harrison Watch

http://www.surveyhistory.org/john_harrison's_timepiece.htm

728.31 "Were Honor nought but Honor's Honor kept/ All Sins might wash away
in Tears unwept"  ?  from Tox's 'Pennsylvaniad'?

728.33 the room-steward Mr. Gonzago

Cf. _Hamlet_ II ii 539-540 Hamlet: "Can you play the murder of Gonzago?"

729.26 "Like being the Swab who holds the Anchor-Pool"  ?

729.27 "The Purser of Time"  ?

729.33 the Veterans of Cartagena and Minorca

A reference to the Seven Years War, which began in 1756.
Britain became involved because of competition with France for
colonies in India and America. Minorca is taken from the British by a
large French fleet; Admiral John Byng is sent to the rescue, but is
forced to retreat to Gibraltar.
This is the same year as the Black Hole of Calcutta, instigated by
the Nawab of Bengal, which gives the British reason to intervene.
Robert Clive retakes Calcutta, and wins control of Bengal, India's
richest province, the following year, thus laying the foundations of
the British Empire in India.

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9807&msg=28351

730.19 "Schiehallion"

http://www1.physics.ox.ac.uk/History/BigGHistory.html

http://www.heartlander.scotland.net/hpstory/Places_story_24.htm

730.20 "Cavendish"

http://www.mada.co.il/website/html/eng/2_1_1-22.htm

730.27 "'Jobation'"  a long tedious rebuke or harangue (à la Job)

http://www.funwords.com/library/j.htm#jobation

730.30 "support Mason's claim to Prize Money from the Board of Longitude for
his Refinements to Mayer's Lunar Tables"

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. Payment of 1,000 pound
for the work fell far short, according to Lalande, of Mason's expectations.

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/mason-dixon/extra/mason_bio.html

Another biography here:

http://famousamericans.net/charlesmason/

731.2 "the method of the Lunars ... its tediousness"

An English astronomer named Nevil Maskelyne had perfected a very complex
method of determining longitude based on observations of the moon. No clock
was necessary to use Maskelyne's technique, but it demanded great skill and
patience.
Maskelyne's technique required calm seas for viewing the sky, and also that
the moon and a number of important reference stars be clearly visible. Once
the relative position of the moon was accurately measured, calculations that
took up to four hours to complete were required to determine the correct
longitude of the observers. Any small errors made during these tortuous
calculations could throw the entire procedure off, resulting in potentially
huge errors in the final calculation of longitude.
Despite these disadvantages, Maskelyne's technique appealed to many members
of the Board of Longitude because of its intellectual purity. They liked the
notion that a skilled mathematician could find longitude by Maskelyne's
technique, without relying on special gadgets.

http://www.oldnewspublishing.com/harrison.htm

731.10 Liripipes, Tippets

liripipe n. the tip of a graduate's hood

tippet n. 3 a long streamer-like part to a sleeve or hood

731.11 Gold Passementerie  passementerie n. a decorative trimming of gimp,
cord, beads, braid etc

In his choice of dress throughout the novel Maskelyne seems to have
gradually turned from foppish harlequin into quasi-medieval sorcerer. Is
there any historical basis for this sartorial metamorphosis?
 
731.25 the amiable bean-pole Dixon secretly afraid of what they were all
caught up in doing (&c)

NB that Mason presumes to psychoanalyse Dixon here. I take it that the
substance of his prognosis regarding Jere is revealed in conversations with
Maskelyne, and that Maskelyne recognises and exploits what he discerns as
romantic or nostalgic sentiments in his offsider in order to pressure Chas
into travelling north to scout around for a suitable Scottish mountain for
the gravity experiments. Note also the echo of the Lambton Worm fable at
731.32-34.

best