[5] See Industrial Biography, pp. 183-197,
[6] The story is told in Scribner's Monthly Illustrated Magazine, for April 1879. Ericsson's modest bill was only $15,000 for two years' labour. He was put off from year to year, and at length the Government refused to pay the amount. "The American Government," says the editor of Scribner, "will not appropriate the money to pay it, and that is all. It is said to be the nature of republics to be ungrateful; but must they also be dishonest?"
[7] Memoirs of the Life and Services of Rear-Admiral Sir William Symonds, Kt., p. 332.
CHAPTER III.[1]
JOHN HARRISON: INVENTOR OF THE MARINE CHRONOMETER.
"No man knows who invented the mariner's compass, or who first hollowed out a canoe from a log. The power to observe accurately the sun, moon, and planets, so as to fix a vessel's actual position when far out of sight of land, enabling long voyages to be safely made; the marvellous improvements in ship-building, which shortened passages by sailing vessels, and vastly reduced freights even before steam gave an independent force to the carrier—each and all were done by small advances, which together contributed to the general movement of mankind.... Each owes all to the others. The forgotten inventors live for ever in the usefulness of the work they have done and the progress they have striven for."—H. M. Hyndman.
One of the most extraordinary things connected with Applied Science is the method by which the Navigator is enabled to find the exact spot of sea on which his ship rides. There may be nothing but water and sky within his view; he may be in the midst of the ocean, or gradually nearing the land; the curvature of the globe baffles the search of his telescope; but if he have a correct chronometer, and can make an astronomical observation, he may readily ascertain his longitude, and know his approximate position—how far he is from home, as well as from his intended destination. He is even enabled, at some special place, to send down his grappling-irons into the sea, and pick up an electrical cable for examination and repair.
This is the result of a knowledge of Practical Astronomy. "Place an astronomer," says Mr. Newcomb, "on board a ship; blindfold him; carry him by any route to any ocean on the globe, whether under the tropics or in one of the frigid zones; land him on the wildest rock that can be found; remove his bandage, and give him a chronometer regulated to Greenwich or Washington time, a transit instrument with the proper appliances, and the necessary books and tables, and in a single clear night he can tell his position within a hundred yards by observations of the stars. This, from a utilitarian point of view, is one of the most important operations of Practical Astronomy."[2]
The Marine Chronometer was the outcome of the crying want of the sixteenth century for an instrument that should assist the navigator to find his longitude on the pathless ocean. Spain was then the principal naval power; she was the most potent monarchy in Europe, and held half America under her sway. Philip III. offered 100,000 crowns for any discovery by means of which the longitude might be determined by a better method than by the log, which was found very defective. Holland next became a great naval power, and followed the example of Spain in offering 30,000 florins for a similar discovery. But though some efforts were made, nothing practical was done, principally through the defective state of astronomical instruments. England succeeded Spain and Holland as a naval power; and when Charles II. established the Greenwich Observatory, it was made a special point that Flamsteed, the Astronomer-Royal, should direct his best energies to the perfecting of a method for finding the longitude by astronomical observations. But though Flamsteed, together with Halley and Newton, made some progress, they were prevented from obtaining ultimate success by the want of efficient chronometers and the defective nature of astronomical instruments.