Details
HARRISON, John (1693-1776) [and Nevil MASKELYNE (1732-1811)]. The Principles of Mr. Harrison's Timekeeper... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: W. Richardson and S. Clark for John Nourse and Mount & Page, 1767.
4o (256 x 211 mm). Half-title; 10 folding engraved plates. (Light marginal offsetting to plate 8.) Bound with 3 other works in contemporary half calf, marbled paper sides, smooth spine with gilt leafy bands and red morocco lettering-piece, edges stained yellow (some insect or rodent damage to spine, inner hinges cracked, new stitching, endpapers renewed).
FIRST EDITION of the "description of the famous solution to the centuries-old world-wide problem of finding the longitude" (Grolier/Horblit). The most straightforward method of calculating longitude is to compare local solar time with the standard time of an established prime meridian. In spite of the advances in horology effected by Christiaan Huygens and other 17th-century experimentors, by the 18th century no one had yet succeeded in devising a clock accurate enough to maintain a standard chronometric measurement over long periods at sea. In 1714 the Board of Longitude offered a reward of £20,000 to anyone who could solve this seemingly intractable problem. Attracted by the prize, the clockmaker John Harrison began building trial chronometers in the 1720s. By 1735 he had succeeded in constructing a cumbersome but accurate "time-keeper," which performed perfectly on an initial test voyage in 1737, earning him a grant of £500 from the Board of Longitude as encouragement to pursue his experiments. It was to take Harrison another 36 years, however, to obtain the reward. Preserved from total discouragement by repeated small installment payments eked out by the Board of Longitude, Harrison continued to refine his design during the next two decades, increasing his time-keeper's accuracy while reducing its size. By the mid-sixties, following two successful trials of his fourth and best instrument, a pocket watch about five inches in diameter, Harrison felt that he had a right to the prize, but the Board insisted that he give a demonstration and full description of his invention in the presence of a panel of six experts, headed by the Astronomer-Royal Nevil Maskelyne. This he did on 22 August 1765; the results were written up and published in this pamphlet, together with Maskelyne's commentary.
Still unsatisfied, the Board awarded Harrison only half the prize money, and continued to raise obstacles to granting him the full sum, even after Captain Cook successfully used an exact copy of Harrison's watch during his first three-year circumnavigation of the world. Harrison accused the Board of unfairly favoring Maskelyne's preferred system of lunar distances for finding longitude. The affair reached George III, who took Harrison's side, and in 1773, following a final demonstration in the King's private observatory at Kew, the 80-year old inventor was at last awarded the remaining £10,000. Harrison's chronometer opened up a new age in ocean navigation and the charting of the seas. "There has possibly been no advance of comparable importance in aids to navigation until the introduction of radar" (PMM 208). Grolier/Horblit 42b; Norman 995.
[Bound with:]
BIRD, John (1709-1776). The Method of Dividing Astronomical Instruments... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: J. Nourse and Mount & Page, 1767. 1 folding engraved plate (of 4, lacking plates 1-3). Bird, a skilled maker of mathematical and astronomical instruments, was the inventor of a huge mural quadrant of unprecedented accuracy which was installed at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for James Bradley, Maskelyne's predecessor as Astronomer-Royal. Copies of Bird's quadrants were later used in observatories throughout Europe. This is one of two pamphlets in which Bird explained his methods and tools for the accurate division of scientific instruments.
[Bound with:]
RAMSDEN, Jesse (1735-1800). Description of an Engine for Dividing Strait Lines on Mathematical Instruments... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: W. Richardson for J. Nourse and Mount & Page, 1779. 3 large folding engraved plates by J. Basire after the author. (Slight offsetting to plates.) [Bound with:] RAMSDEN. Description of an Engine for Dividing Mathematical Instruments... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: W. Richardson for J. Nourse and Mount & Page, 1777. 4 large folding engraved plates by Basire after the author (light offsetting). "Ramsden was acknowledged to be the most skillful and capable instrument maker of the eighteenth century... A passion for precision was the motivating force behind Ramsden's development of the dividing engine, his greatest contribution to the technology of the era. His first machine, built around 1766, produced only moderate improvement in the accuracy he sought, but the machine constructed in 1775 [described here] reduced the error to less than one-half second of arc... This achievement earned him a grant from the Commissioners of the Board of Longitude in 1777" (DSB).
A fine collection of pamphlets issued by the Board of Longitude and with prefaces by Nevil Maskelyne, all describing important 18th-century advances in the development of precision instruments.
4o (256 x 211 mm). Half-title; 10 folding engraved plates. (Light marginal offsetting to plate 8.) Bound with 3 other works in contemporary half calf, marbled paper sides, smooth spine with gilt leafy bands and red morocco lettering-piece, edges stained yellow (some insect or rodent damage to spine, inner hinges cracked, new stitching, endpapers renewed).
FIRST EDITION of the "description of the famous solution to the centuries-old world-wide problem of finding the longitude" (Grolier/Horblit). The most straightforward method of calculating longitude is to compare local solar time with the standard time of an established prime meridian. In spite of the advances in horology effected by Christiaan Huygens and other 17th-century experimentors, by the 18th century no one had yet succeeded in devising a clock accurate enough to maintain a standard chronometric measurement over long periods at sea. In 1714 the Board of Longitude offered a reward of £20,000 to anyone who could solve this seemingly intractable problem. Attracted by the prize, the clockmaker John Harrison began building trial chronometers in the 1720s. By 1735 he had succeeded in constructing a cumbersome but accurate "time-keeper," which performed perfectly on an initial test voyage in 1737, earning him a grant of £500 from the Board of Longitude as encouragement to pursue his experiments. It was to take Harrison another 36 years, however, to obtain the reward. Preserved from total discouragement by repeated small installment payments eked out by the Board of Longitude, Harrison continued to refine his design during the next two decades, increasing his time-keeper's accuracy while reducing its size. By the mid-sixties, following two successful trials of his fourth and best instrument, a pocket watch about five inches in diameter, Harrison felt that he had a right to the prize, but the Board insisted that he give a demonstration and full description of his invention in the presence of a panel of six experts, headed by the Astronomer-Royal Nevil Maskelyne. This he did on 22 August 1765; the results were written up and published in this pamphlet, together with Maskelyne's commentary.
Still unsatisfied, the Board awarded Harrison only half the prize money, and continued to raise obstacles to granting him the full sum, even after Captain Cook successfully used an exact copy of Harrison's watch during his first three-year circumnavigation of the world. Harrison accused the Board of unfairly favoring Maskelyne's preferred system of lunar distances for finding longitude. The affair reached George III, who took Harrison's side, and in 1773, following a final demonstration in the King's private observatory at Kew, the 80-year old inventor was at last awarded the remaining £10,000. Harrison's chronometer opened up a new age in ocean navigation and the charting of the seas. "There has possibly been no advance of comparable importance in aids to navigation until the introduction of radar" (PMM 208). Grolier/Horblit 42b; Norman 995.
[Bound with:]
BIRD, John (1709-1776). The Method of Dividing Astronomical Instruments... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: J. Nourse and Mount & Page, 1767. 1 folding engraved plate (of 4, lacking plates 1-3). Bird, a skilled maker of mathematical and astronomical instruments, was the inventor of a huge mural quadrant of unprecedented accuracy which was installed at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for James Bradley, Maskelyne's predecessor as Astronomer-Royal. Copies of Bird's quadrants were later used in observatories throughout Europe. This is one of two pamphlets in which Bird explained his methods and tools for the accurate division of scientific instruments.
[Bound with:]
RAMSDEN, Jesse (1735-1800). Description of an Engine for Dividing Strait Lines on Mathematical Instruments... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: W. Richardson for J. Nourse and Mount & Page, 1779. 3 large folding engraved plates by J. Basire after the author. (Slight offsetting to plates.) [Bound with:] RAMSDEN. Description of an Engine for Dividing Mathematical Instruments... Published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude. London: W. Richardson for J. Nourse and Mount & Page, 1777. 4 large folding engraved plates by Basire after the author (light offsetting). "Ramsden was acknowledged to be the most skillful and capable instrument maker of the eighteenth century... A passion for precision was the motivating force behind Ramsden's development of the dividing engine, his greatest contribution to the technology of the era. His first machine, built around 1766, produced only moderate improvement in the accuracy he sought, but the machine constructed in 1775 [described here] reduced the error to less than one-half second of arc... This achievement earned him a grant from the Commissioners of the Board of Longitude in 1777" (DSB).
A fine collection of pamphlets issued by the Board of Longitude and with prefaces by Nevil Maskelyne, all describing important 18th-century advances in the development of precision instruments.