Announces 2 June meeting of 'Commissioners for more effectually discovering the Longitude at Sea.' Inquired about 'excise,' but sees no reason to wait for Navy Board to act.
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The Sir John Herschel Collection
The preparation of the print Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel (Michael J. Crowe ed., David R. Dyck and James J. Kevin assoc. eds, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998, viii + 828 pp) which was funded by the National Science Foundation, took ten years. It was accomplished by a team of seventeen professors, visiting scholars, graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and staff working at the University of Notre Dame.
The first online version of Calendar was created in 2009 by Dr Marvin Bolt and Steven Lucy, working at the Webster Institute of the Adler Planetarium, and it is that data that has now been reformatted for incorporation into Ɛpsilon.
Further information about Herschel, his correspondence, and the editorial method is available online here: http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/herschel/?p=intro
No texts of Herschel’s letters are currently available through Ɛpsilon.
Announces 2 June meeting of 'Commissioners for more effectually discovering the Longitude at Sea.' Inquired about 'excise,' but sees no reason to wait for Navy Board to act.
Ask Charles Babbage to send tables of logarithms to TY, who will compare them to [Brook] Taylor's. Bets that five errors will be found. Did JH order mountain barometer from [J. F.] Newman? Will inquire about [W. E.] Parry's instruments. Admiralty, not us, should order sextants.
Questions JH's conclusion that Board of Longitude has power to interfere in Admiralty operations. Disagrees that Nautical Almanac errors are serious. Compares them to tables of Charles Hutton, F. X. von Zach, and H. C. Schumacher. When will TY receive Charles Babbage's table?
[Board of Longitude] must answer to Parliament, not to public opinion. Do not contest the system. Order pocket sextants; they and barometer will be sent to Captain [Richard] Copeland. Knows how JH feels about expenses sent to Edward Sabine, but please write receipt and send it to TY within week. Will write directly to Charles Babbage for tables.
Suggests change in JH's table of refractions. Possible error in John Pond's reductions [illustration].