by Dava Sobel
Fred Powell, an antiquarian horologist in Middlebury, Vermont, helped by sending me several colorful clippings and reports, and by directing me to exhibits of antique navigational instruments.
For a few months at the outset, I maintained the insane idea that I could write this book without traveling to England and seeing the timekeepers firsthand. I owe a huge vote of thanks to my brother Stephen Sobel, D.D.S., for propelling me to London so I could stand on the prime meridian with my children, Zoë and Isaac, root around the Old Royal Observatory, and watch clocks at various museums.
I consulted many books in order to piece together my version of the longitude story. For helping me find hard-to-get and out-of-print editions, I want to thank Will Andrewes and his assistant Martha Richardson at Harvard; P. J. Rogers of Rogers and Turner booksellers, London and Paris; Sandra Cumming of the Royal Society in London; Eileen Doudna of the Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pennsylvania; Anne Shallcross at the Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois; Burton Van Deusen of Bay View Books, East Hampton, New York; my dear friend Diane Ackerman, and my A+ niece Amanda Sobel. A complete bibliography follows.
Angle, Paul M. The American Reader. New York: Rand McNally, 1958.
Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. New York: Doubleday, 1972.
Barrow, Sir John. The Life of George Lord Anson. London: John Murray, 1839.
Bedini, Silvio A. The Pulse of Time: Galileo Galilei, the Determination of Longitude, and the Pendulum Clock. Firenze: Bibliotecca di Nuncius, 1991.
Betts, Jonathan. Harrison. London: National Maritime Museum, 1993.
Brown, Lloyd A. The Story of Maps. Boston: Little, Brown, 1949.
Dutton, Benjamin. Navigation and Nautical Astronomy. Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1951.
Earnshaw, Thomas. Longitude: An Appeal to the Public. London: 1808; rpt. British Horological Institute, 1986.
Espinasse, Margaret. Robert Hooke. London: Heinemann, 1956.
Gould, Rupert T. John Harrison and His Timekeepers. London: National Maritime Museum, 1978. (Reprinted from The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. XXI, No. 2, April 1935.)
—. The Marine Chronometer. London: J. D. Potter, 1923; rpt. Antique Collectors’ Club, 1989.
Heaps, Leo. Log of the Centurion. New York: Macmillan, 1973.
Hobden, Heather, and Hobden, Mervyn. John Harrison and the Problem of Longitude. Lincoln, England: Cosmic Elk, 1988.
Howse, Derek. Nevil Maskelyne, The Seaman’s Astronomer. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Landes, David S. Revolution in Time. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Laycock, William. The Lost Science of John “Longitude” Harrison. Kent, England: Brant Wright, 1976.
Macey, Samuel L., ed. Encyclopedia of Time. New York: Garland, 1994.
May, W. E. “How the Chronometer Went to Sea,” in Antiquarian Horology, March 1976, pp. 638-63.
Mercer, Vaudrey. John Arnold and Son, Chronometer Makers, 1762-1843. London: Antiquarian Horological Society, 1972.
Miller, Russell. The East Indiamen. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life, 1980.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Oxford History of the American People. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Moskowitz, Saul. “The Method of Lunar Distances and Technological Advance,” presented at the Institute of Navigation, New York, 1969.
Pack, S. W. C. Admiral Lord Anson. London: Cassell, 1960.
Quill, Humphrey. John Harrison, the Man Who Found Longitude. London: Baker, 1966.
—. John Harrison, Copley Medalist, and the £20,000 Longitude Prize. Sussex: Antiquarian Horological Society, 1976.
Randall, Anthony G. The Technology of John Harrison’s Portable Timekeepers. Sussex: Antiquarian Horological Society, 1989.
Vaughn, Denys, ed. The Royal Society and the Fourth Dimension: The History of Timekeeping. Sussex: Antiquarian Horological Society, 1993.
Whittle, Eric S. The Inventor of the Marine Chronometer: John Harrison of Foulby. Wakefield, England: Wakefield Historical Publications, 1984.
Williams, J. E. D. From Sails to Satellites: The Origin and Development of Navigational Science. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Wood, Peter H. “La Salle: Discovery of a Lost Explorer,” in American Historical Review, Vol. 89 (1984) pp. 294-323.
Copyright © 1995 by Dava Sobel
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the Publisher.
First published in the United States of America in 1995 by Walker
Publishing Company, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Canada,
Limited, Markham, Ontario
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sobel, Dava.
Longitude : the true story of a lone genius who solved the
greatest scientific problem of his time / Dava Sobel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-802-77943-4
1. Longitude—Measurement—History. 2. Harrison, John.
1693-1776. 3. Clock and watch makers—Great
Britain—Biography.
I. Title.
QB225.S64 1995
526’.62’09—dc20 95-17402
CIP
Illustration of H-4 on title page spread used by permission of the
National Maritime Museum, London.
Illustration of H-4 on chapter openers used by permission of The
Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, London.
BOOK DESIGN BY CLAIRE NAYLON VACCARO
Printed in the United States of America
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