Next message: Frank Reed: "Re: Timing Lunars with a Rock"
George Huxtable wrote:
"What a mess listmembers would make of estimating time at an African lake,
if that's the best they can do between them!"
Lucky for us then that the time machine has not yet been invented. :-)
Back to the historical context for a moment, I found it just amazing that a
longitude measurement of such import (at the time) was accomplished with the
help of a stone swinging on the end of a string. I have not been able to
confirm that this was really the case in the specific situation described, but
it's at least possible.
Lunars were apparently rather popular among European explorers/travelers in
19th century Africa. The famous David Livingstone apparently took hundreds of
lunar observations while he was roaming around southern Africa.
Go here: http://www.hti.umich.edu/ and click the "Making of America"
collection. Enter "lunars" as a search term. You'll find all sorts of references
including the tale of Livingstone's last travels and also a complete online
edition of Chauvenet's "Manual of Spherical and Practical Astronomy".
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
