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Bruce S wrote:
"That's true, Frank. I was talking about Moore's New Practical Navigator. You
were talking about America's pirated version of it. I have a 1796 and an 1804
Moore in front of me. Both appear to be the real thing. Neither has the
method you attribute to Rios."
Aha. Thanks for checking. I haven't opened a "real" Moore in a year, and yes,
you're correct, I was talking about the Blunt/Bowditch "pirated" edition.
And you wrote:
"But, I understand from you the 1800 American version does have it. That
seems right to me. Bowditch is said to have invented the method on his first
voyage. He left Salem in January 1795, and returned a year later. It seems
reasonable to suppose he would have sent a letter explaining the method to the Royal
Society of London sometime during the voyage. "
The first method in the Blunt/Bowditch 'pirate-Moore' is defi
nitely the method invented by Jose de Mendoza y Rios and written up as part
of a long article in the Transactions of the Royal Society and published (in
French) in late 1796 (and that is at the latest --it may well have been
published earlier). Mendoza Rios was a friend and protege of the famous naturalist
Joseph Banks who was himself President of the Royal Society. It does not strike
me as remotely plausible that those two "swiped" the method from Bowditch.
Additionally, we know for a fact from his own writings that Nathaniel Bowditch was
an avid, even obsessive, reader of the Transactions and famously that he had
taught himself French and Latin. And we know that in later years, Bowditch was
at his best when he was translating, simplifying, and amplifyng the work of
the great French celestial mechanic, Laplace. Mining for gold in a French
article in the Transactions would have been right up his alley!
Also, I have closely read Bowditch's descriptions of this method, and he does
not appear to claim that he himself invented it --only that he 'made it
known' or something to that effect (which some people might interpret as mere
modesty on his part). Does anyone know of a specific place where Nathaniel Bowditch
states directly "I invented this method"? It is only in later editions,
apparently after Nathaniel Bowditch's death (?), by which time the original "First"
Method has been shifted to "Third", that the text claims that the author
"invented" the method, and that may have been nothing more than proud editing by
his son or someone else. The method which is "First" in those later editions is
slightly, but distinctly, modified from the Third method (the method of
Mendoza Rios) in ways which make it easier to use, and Bowditch certainly deserves
credit for those small, clever modificiations. But that original method is not
his.
There is also the possibility that the method in question isn't Mendoza
Rios's either and that they were both describing some method which was commonly
known or invented by yet another mathematician. I only mention that to cover the
logical possibility, but I don't think it's all that likely.
Frank R
[ ] Mystic, Connecticut
[X] Chicago, Illinois
