Sumner lines
Subject: Sumner lines
From: Peter Smith (Smith_Peter@XXX.XXX)
Date: Sat Feb 17 2001 - 17:13:03 EST
Apropos the current discussions of ex-meridian sights and books on the
longitude problem...
Can anyone recommend any articles, books, or parts thereof that chronicle
the gradual change in common practice from separate solutions for latidude
and longitude to LOP-based methods, first Sumner's, then altitude-intercept
after Saint Hillaire? Neither _From Sails to Satellites_ nor _The
Haven-Finding Art_ cover this. All I have been able to gleen is inferences
from the way the topics are treated in various editions of Bowditch. It
would seem that the US Navy adopted the new methods early in the 20th
century, but the merchant marine continued with the old right up to WW-II.
-- Peter
