PRINCIPES DE LA MONTRE DE MR. HARRISON, AVEC LES PLANCHES RELATIVES A LA MEME MONTRE, IMPRIMES A LONDRES EN 1767 PAR ORDRE DE MRS. LES LES COMMISSAIRES DES LONGITUDES.
Avignon: La Veuve Girard [et all], 1767. First French Edition. Quarto, [2], v, [1], 39 pages plus seven folding plates; double pagination with intermixed English and French leaves paginated separately. In Good plus condition. Bound in later quarter red cloth with gilt titling to spine and marbled paper covered boards. Light bumping and fraying to head and tail of spine; light bumping and chipping to edges and corners of boards. End papers with moderate plus age toning. Text block with light plus to moderate age toning, varying somewhat by page, and scattered foxing. Bookplate of previous owner to front pastedown. Significant archival repair to fore edge of English title page. Damp staining to large area of lower fore edge corner of text block through p. 6, subsequently reducing to more limited damp staining at lower fore edge through p. 18. Light waving to leaves impacted by damp staining. BB Consignment. Shelved case 3.
1394672
Shelved Dupont Bookstore
Price: $5,000
NOTES
For centuries, western sea navigation was plagued by the longitude problem: the difficulty of establishing one's longitude while at sea. In 1714, the British Parliament passed a law which established an award of £20,000 to be given to the individual or individuals who developed a reliable method of solving this problem. Though this was not the first such award created, it did inspire the efforts of the man who ultimately found the solution: John Harrison (1693-1776), a carpenter and self-taught clockmaker. Harrison began working on the problem in the 1720s and presented his first step toward a solution to Astronomer Royal Edmund Halley in 1730. The first formal trial of one of his sea clocks was conducted in 1736; over the course of his life, he produced a further four iterations, concluding with a "sea watch" that was tested by King George III personally. While Harrison never received the full award created by the 1714 law, he did apply for--and receive--a separate award from Parliament in recognition of his work, and he is remembered as the man who solved the problem of calculating longitude at sea.