The Day the World Discovered the Sun (36 page)

4
. Russians still used the old Julian calendar. The new Gregorian date (in use across most of Europe) was January 19.

5
. Chappe,
Siberia
, 338–340. James Boswell,
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D
. (London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1816), 3:368–369. James Forfar, “The Czarina Elizabeth,”
Gentleman's Magazine
250 (1881): 606.

6
. “The Life of Catherine II, Empress of Russia (review),”
European Magazine and London Review
34 (1798): 390. History judges Peter III somewhat less harshly—partly as a victim of a propaganda campaign masterminded by his wife (and likely assassin), Catherine.

7
. All quotes in Chappe's lecture are from “Mr. L'Abbé Chappe d'Auteroche,”
Memoire du passage de Venus sur le soleil
(St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of the Sciences), 1762. Translation by Mark Anderson.

8
. Harry Woolf,
The Transits of Venus
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 118–119, 145–147.

9
. It was only in the nineteenth century, after the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, that the Russian empire would stretch to the Pacific.

10
. Chappe,
Siberia
, 320–321.

11
. Michael Reidy, Gary Kroll, and Erik Conway,
Exploration and Science: Social Impact and Interaction
(Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007), 19.

12
. Richard Watkins,
Jérôme Lalande: Diary of a Trip to England, 1763
(Kingston, Tasmania: Richard Watkins, 2002), 161.

13
. 3”/26” = 0.12 (dist. betw. eyes vs. length of arms), while 6356 × 2 km/150,000,000 km = 0.000085 (diam. of earth vs. AU, solar distance, or astronomical unit). Remember that the equivalent
parallax
distance for face would be nose-to-eye distance versus arm's length.

14
. Woolf,
Transits
, 145.

15
. Lalande's tendency toward snap judgments would one day cost him the discovery of the planet Neptune. Although he observed it in 1795, no one recognized it as a planet for another fifty-one years. Instead, Lalande reported that he observed just another “star,” although his notebooks reveal he'd seen the position of the “star” shift over time. E. M. Standish, “Early Observations and Modern Ephemerides,”
Highlights of Astronomy
12 (2002): 327–328.

16
. Nevil Maskelyne, “An Account of the Observations Made on the Transit of Venus, June 6, 1761, in the Island of St. Helena,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
52 (December 1761): 199–200.

C
HAPTER
4: T
HE
M
IGHTY
D
IMENSIONS

1
. John Dobson,
Chronological Annals of the War
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1763), xiv,
http://tinyurl.com/34qvxmy
.

2
. “From the top of the tower in Dunkirk, you can see the Thames.”
Jérôme Lalande: Diary of a Trip to England, 1763
, trans. Richard Watkins (Kingston, Tasmania: Richard Watkins, 2002), 8,
http://watkinsr.id.au/Lalande.pdf
.

3
. In “Fiction or Fact?” in
The Enigma of the Age: The Strange Story of Chevalier d'Eon
(London: Longmans, 1966) 11–25, Cynthia Cox sorts through claims and legends of d'Éon's possible
embassage en femme
. D'Éon ultimately developed such a contemporary reputation as a transgendered spy (to use a modern term) that in 1771 the London Stock Exchange sold financial instruments that effectively constituted bets as to whether d'Éon was a man or a woman. Jonathan Conlin, “The Strange Case of the Chevalier d'Eon,”
History Today
60, no. 4 (2010): 45–51.

4
. Louis XV to d'Éon, June 3, 1763, in
Correspondence secrète inédité de Louis XV, sur la politique étrangère
(Paris, 1866), 1:293–294; Gary Kates,
Monsieur d'Eon Is a Woman
(New York: Basic, 1995), 93–94.

5
.
Jérôme Lalande
, 12.

6
. Owing to the ambassador's illness, D'Éon was serving a dual role as interim ambassador.
The Memoirs of Chevalier D'Éon
, trans. Antonia White (London: Anthony Blond, 1970), 123–124.

7
. Contemporary description of the act in “The History of the Last Session of Parliament,”
London Magazine
32 (1763): 680–681,
http://tinyurl.com/2brot2g
.

8
. David Alan Grier,
When Computers Were Human
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 28.

9
.
Jérôme Lalande
, 17.

10
.
The European Magazine
, April 1783, 252,
http://tinyurl.com/38kh4du
.

11
.
Jérôme Lalande
, 20.

12
. “The King does not live in Kensington
at present”
(emphasis added).
Jérôme Lalande
, 20.

13
. Charles Eyre Pascoe,
London of To-Day
(Boston: Roberts Bros., 1890), 324,
http://tinyurl.com/2b6dv3t
.

14
. Nevil Maskelyne,
The British Mariner's Guide . . .
(London: Nevil Maskelyne, 1763), i–ii.

15
. Maskelyne,
British Mariner's Guide
, v; (Jérôme) Lalande,
Connoissance des mouvemens célestes pour l'année 1762
(Paris: L'Impreimerie Royale, 1760), i,
http://books.google.com/books?id=gJ0AAAAAMAAJ
. Translation by Mark Anderson.

16
.
Jérôme Lalande
, 13.

17
. Maskelyne,
British Mariner's Guide
, iii.

18
. Review of
The British Mariner's Guide
in
The Monthly Review
28 (May 1763): 406,
http://tinyurl.com/6ywvjsb
. By contrast, see
Gentleman's Magazine
43 (1773): 228–229,
http://tinyurl.com/4w2o5n6
, for a vitriolic critique of the
Mariner's Guide
.

19
. Derek Howse, “The Lunar-Distance Method of Measuring Longitude,” in
The Quest for Longitude
, ed. William J.H. Andrewes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 156.

20
. Derek Howse,
Greenwich Time
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 66–67.

21
.
British Palladium
12 (1764): 110;
Monthly Chronologer
28 (September 1759): 505;
Annual Register
10 (1761): 138,
http://tinyurl.com/6hgg9r5
;
http://tinyurl.com/6yavmce
;
http://tinyurl.com/6jcumcr
.

22
.
Jérôme Lalande
, 29–30; Derek Howse and Anita McConnell, “Jeremiah Sisson,” in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

23
. Isaac Newton, letter to Josiah Burchett, secretary of the Admiralty, August 26, 1725, in
Correspondence of Isaac Newton
, ed. H. W. Turnbull et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959–1977), 7:330–332.

24
. “Id vero an ipsi Daemone possible nescio.” David S. Landes,
Revolution in Time
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 166–167.

25
. On the “isochronal corrector” and “bimetallic strip,” see William J.H. Andrewes, “Even Newton Could Be Wrong,” in
Quest for Longitude
, 217–219.

26
.
Jérôme Lalande
, 30.

27
. Anthony Randall, “The Timekeeper That Won the Longitude Prize,” in
Quest for Longitude
, 244–245.

28
. Nevil Maskelyne to Edmund Maskelyne, December 29, 1763. National Maritime Museum PST/76/f.100–1, in Derek Howse,
Nevil Maskelyne
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 49.

29
. Ibid.

30
. John Oldmixon,
The British Empire in America
(London: J. Brotherton, 1741), 161–162.

31
. Nevil Maskelyne, “Astronomical Observations Made at the Island of Barbados . . .”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
, December 20, 1764, 389–392,
http://tinyurl.com/47lzfmp
.

32
. Howse,
Maskelyne
, 50–51.

33
. Randall, “Timekeeper,” 247.

34
. Wendy Wales, “Biography of Charles Green,”
Cook's Log
23, no. 4 (2000): 1775.

35
. Sixty years later, the author and diplomat François René de Chateaubriand would look back to the 1763 treaty and wonder how “the government of my country would let perish her colonies that for us today would be an inexhaustible source of prosperity.” Chateaubriand,
Voyage en Amérique
(Paris: Gabriel Roux, 1857), 219. Translation by Mark Anderson.

36
. Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche, remarks to the Académie Royale des Sciences, November 14, 1764, in Ferdinand Berthoud,
Traité des horloges marines . . .
(Paris: J.B.G. Musier, 1773), 539–541. Translation by Mark Anderson.

37
. There has been some confusion on this point (e.g., Gould), but Berthoud says Chappe tested the “Montre Marine No. 3” in November 1764. Ferdinand Berthoud,
Traité des horloges marines, contenant la théorie, la construction, la main-d'oeuvre de ces machines, et la maniere de les éprouver
(Paris: J.B.G. Musier Fils, 1773), 539–545.

38
. Although the Treaty of Paris may have ended the Seven Years' War, the king's admirals were still playing catch-up with the superior British fleet, preparing for the next inevitable go-round on the high seas. Jonathan
R. Dull,
The French Navy and the Seven Years' War
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 245.

39
. Chappe, “Table de la marche de l'Horloge Marine” in Berthoud,
Traité
, 544.

40
. Ibid., 542 fn.

41
. Harrison's watch gained and lost seconds on a similar scale—but more predictably so. At 42 degrees Fahrenheit, the Harrison marine chronometer gained 3 seconds per 24 hours; at 52 degrees, 2 seconds; at 62, one second. These known inaccuracies could then be subtracted, yielding Harrison's groundbreaking results. Randall, “Timekeeper,” 247 fn.

42
. Chappe/Berthoud,
Traité
, 545.

C
HAPTER
5: T
HE
B
OOK AND THE
S
HIP

1
. S. A. Wepster,
Between Theory and Observations: Tobias Mayer's Explorations of Lunar Motion
(Springer: New York, 2010), 126.

2
. Owen Gingerich and Barbara Welther, “Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positions, A.D. 1650–1805,”
Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society
59S (1983): xxi,
http://doiop.com/LunarsAccuracy
.

3
. Don't be deceived by the units. The earth rotates through 360 degrees every 24 hours—or 360/24 = 15 degrees every hour. So discovering that one lies, for instance, 3 “hours” from Greenwich means that Greenwich is 3 × 15 = 45 degrees of longitude away.

4
. Mary Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens: Computing the
Nautical Almanac
in 18th-Century England,”
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
25, no. 3 (2003): 48–61.

5
. E. G. R. Taylor,
The Haven-finding Art: A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook
(London: Hollis & Carter, 1956), 263.

6
. “St. Dunstan's in the West,” in
London and Its Environs Described
(London: R. & J. Dodsley, 1761), 2:254–255; James Holbert Wilson,
Temple Bar: The City Golgotha
(London: David Bogue, 1853), 55–56.

7
.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
, abridged ed. (London: C&R Baldwin, 1809), vol. 33 (1691), 448. The Royal Society began meeting at Crane Court in 1710. Halley was appointed Astronomer Royal in 1720.

8
. Thomas Hornsby, “On the Transit of Venus in 1769 . . .”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
55 (1765): 343–344.

9
. John Black,
Travels Through Norway and Lapland During the Years 1806, 1807, and 1808
(London: Henry Colburn, 1813), 259.

10
. Harry Woolf,
The Transits of Venus
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 176. Bayley did obtain Venus transit data from nearby North Cape, but it was inferior to the Venus transit observations collected in
Vardø (at the invitation of the king of Denmark) by Father Maximilian Hell and Joannes Sajnovics, the subject of Chapters 7, 9, and 12 of the present book.

11
. Royal Society Council Minute Book, 5:176–178, 181–200.

12
. Hornsby calculated that the transit time observed in California would be some seventeen minutes different from the transit time observed in Lapland—providing data good enough to map out the whole solar system with the kind of 99.8 percent accuracy Edmund Halley had dreamed about.

13
. Andrew Steinmetz,
The History of the Jesuits
(Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1848), 2:463.