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From: George Huxtable (no email)
Date: Fri Sep 10 2004 - 17:16:04 EDT
Courtney Thomas asked, about Cotter's "A History of Nautical Astronomy"-
>There's one on abebooks.com for $199.50.
>
>May I ask why is this book(s) worth $200 ?
The short answer is because the seller, presumably, thinks he can get it,
on account of the rarity and uniqueness of this book.
I have asked on this list if members know of other works which explain
pre-Sumner navigation techniques without skipping the basic maths involved,
to meet my own interests and I guess those of a significant fraction of
Nav-L members
Some suggestions have been-
Hewson, JB, "A history of the practice of navigation", 1951 (who skips the
maths of the lunar).
May, WE, "A history of marine navigation", Good on compasses, avoids all maths.
Albuquerque, Luis de. "Astronomical Navigation" (Lisbon, 1988). Confines
itself to 15th-16th century Portuguese navigation, so latitude navigation
only.
Forbes, Eric G, "The birth of navigation science", 1974. National Maritime
Museum pamphlet No.10. About the longitude problem, lunars, and
chronometers, but in words and pictures only. Lots of references.
I have all of these on my shelves but have found that none does the job
that Cotter does, so to me, Cotter occupies a unique place been unafraid of
getting into the mathematical background. His book also contains a
remarkable list of references.
He was a lecturer at a nautical college in Cardiff, Wales, which must have
held a first-class historical library in which to delve.
But in my view he was working right at the limits of his understanding. In
this field he was quite on his own, as his son has recently confirmed to
me. It was before the days of email, so Cotter didn't have the chance,
which we now enjoy on Nav-l, to offer his ideas to the criticism and
argument of others.
Perhaps as a result, his book is littered with technical errors, which is
my biggest (perhaps my only) criticism. Jan Kalivoda and I (with help from
Herbert Prinz) have assembled a web-page which lists points at which errors
lurk (or are suspected to lurk). It does not claim to be exhaustive, but
aims be useful to any reader or owner of Cotter's book. We recommend that
it be printed out and slipped between the pages. You can find it on-
www.huxtable.u-net.com/cotter01.htm
Cotter wrote several other books on nautical topics: "A history of the
navigator's sextant" (which is good), and standard texts, "The complete
coastal navigator" and, I think, on the Physical Geography of the Oceans,
which are so-so. So make sure you acquire the right Cotter.
============
Geoff Butt didn't give information for contacting Warsash Nautical
Bookshop. Warsash is is at the upper end of Portsmouth Harbour in the UK.
The phone number I have here is-
01481 572384 or from outside UK +44 1481 572384. Sorry, but I don't have
their email address to hand. I can recommend them as good people to deal
with. Geoff didn't say how much they were asking for Cotter, but I bet it
was a lot less than $200!
George.
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contact George Huxtable by email at , by phone at
01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy
Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
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