A ROMANCE OF TIME

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19374, 24 December 1932, Page 19

A ROMANCE OF TIME

THE MARINE CHRONOMETER. The early mariners sailing on uncharted seas endeavoured as a rule to map out tlieir discoveries, but very frequently their efforts were scarcely even approximately correct, because they had no means of telling with any degree of accuracy how far east or west they were (writes Flinders Barr in the “Sydney Morning Herald”). Consequently, newly-discovered places might be as correct as needs be, north and south, but might be scores of miles out of position east and west. The seaman calculated his longitude in those days by the estimated distance his ship had run from .some known point of land, and considering the crudity of his apparatus some extraordinary results were obtained. When approaching land after a long voyage the uncertainty as to how far ahead the coast might be was very trying, especially in thick or foggy weather.

One of the saddest sea-happenings on record, due to this cause, • occurred in 1707, when Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, returning with his fleet from Gibraltar, had thick and cloudy weather during practically the whole twelve days his ships had occupied in running to the mouth of the English Channel. Before what is called “marking the land” the Admiral hove his ships to, and took the opinions of the navigators of the vessels as to the correct position. With one exception (which afterwards proved to be the right one) all their reckonings placed the fleet in a position of safety, some distance to the westward, off Ushant, on the French coast. Reassured by this consensus of opinion, the Admiral set a course for up the Channel, but the same night in a heavy fog the fleet ran on to the rocky Scilly Islands, four ships being lost, and nearly two thousand men, including Sir Cloudesley himself. A story popular for a long time was that a seaman on the flagship, who had privately kept his own reckoning of the ships’ position. told the officers that the fleet was in a position of danger. This presumption on the part of a common seaman so incensed his superiors that they immediately tried him for mutiny, sentenced him to be hung, and, as the story goes, hung he was forthwith. Many Futile Schemes. Roughly, from about 1500 to 1760, when the problem was practically solved, the discovery of some method of finding a ship’s longitude at sea became a more and more pressing necessity, consequently numberless schemes were put forward, all utterly impracticable. Amongst these was one proposed in 1714 by two mathematicians, one named Whiston, a non-conform-ist minister, the other named Ditton. Their idea was to anchor lightships on the principal trade routes, which ships were to fire rockets which would explode at the exact height of 6440 feet, ships were to determine their distance from the nearest lightship by timing the interval between the flash and the report. To show the poor knowledge of oceangraphy at the time, the deepest part of the Atlantic in which the lightships were to be moored was definitely stated to nowhere exceed 300 fathoms or 1800 feet, whereas the average depth is 2000 fathoms. The sarcastic Dean Swift had a tilt at these two attempters on the longitude solution in what he called an “Ode to Musick on the Longitude,” which commences:

The longitude mist on By wicket Will Whiston; And no better hit on By good Master Ditton, the rest of the effusion, being Swift's, ! is unfit for polite ears. An extremely complicated but only j approximate method of obtaining the i proximate method of obtaining the i longitude by observations of the moon was suggested at quite an early period j anc 4 came into general use in the 18th ■ century, but to get even an approach I to the truth was a matter of extrepie I difficulty. This may be gathered from | the remark of a navigating officer in | the East India Company's service, who j said that each observation took about ! four nours to calculate and the resuit, I always “vnen near land whose longitude w. l correctly known, agreed within one degree, or sr.-.tj miles”; evi- I dently this was considered a mere ! trifle. The main idea was to get a I timekeeper which would keep Green- | wich time at sea —then when you took your observation, you would substract i or add your time to or from that of ! Greenwich and know where you were. : As far back as 1598 the Spanish Government had offered a perpetual pension of 6000 ducats, a life pension of j 2000 ducats, and 1000 more, as a gra- I tuity to the fortunate “discoverer of i the longitude.” The largest and most j famous reward, however, was that offered by the British Government in 1714. This great prize, which became ! law by the Act 12 Anne. cap. 15, offered to any person who should invent a practical method of finding the longi- i tude, the following scale of rewards: \ £IO.OOO for any method capable of de- ! termining a ship's longiture within one degree, or sixty miles; £15.000 if it were ! determined within forty miles; and j £20,000 if it deterwined it within thirty I miles. The bill also provided for a ! body of commissioners known as “The j Board of Longitude,” who were to ad- j judicate. The reward remained on , offer for fifty years, during which 1 period the expression “the discovery 1 of the longitude” passed in common ! English speech as an equivalent to ! saying a thing was an impossibility.

Success at Last. But the hour and the man arrived at last, and, in 164, the great reward was won by a plain Yorkshire village i carpenter named John Harrison, who i solved the problem which had baffled I the greatest brains in the world for , over two hundred years. He invented 1 a timekeeper which kept perfect time j at sea. The self-taught genius, the son of a village carpenter, was born • at Foulby in the parish of Wragly. I Yorkshire, in May, 1693. Thus another ! remote Yorkshire village produced a benefactor of his race to claim equal recognition with James Cook. The story of Harrison's struggles, difficulties, disappointments, and final success cannot be told here; but, although his timekeeper solved the problem, he had great difficulty in getting his reward from the Board of Longitude. King George 111., however, interested himself on his behalf, and after delaying payment as long as they could, he finally received the balance of the reward. His timekeeper set watchmakers upon the right track. In 1770 John Harrison’s health began to fail, and attacked by the gout he gradually declined during the next few years, but he survived long enough to hear of the wonderful performance of a copy of his No. 4 chronometer made by Larcom Kendall, in the South Seas with Captain Cook, although he never read Cook’s glowing tribute to it in the published edition of his journal. “I must here take note that our longitudes can never be erroneous while we have so good a guide as Mr Kendall's watch.” This watch, Kendall’s No. 1, or Kl, was lent by the Admiralty to Cook for his second and third voyages. It was then used by Vancouver on his famous survey of the north-west coast of North ‘ America. Kl was never used by Lieu-

tenant Bligh on his voyage in the Bounty, as was recently stated. Bligh used Kendall’s No. 2, a timekeeper with a romantic history. K 3 was taken on Cook's third voyage as well as K No. 1, and was used afterwards by both Vancouver and Matthew Flinders.

“Longitude” Harrison, as he wr»s often called, died at his house in Rod Lion Square, London, on March 24, 1776. in the 83rd year of his age, and is buried in the cemetery of St. John's Church, Hampstead.