All dates in this book have been adjusted. England was still adhering to the Julian calendar throughout Halley’s life. The monarchy did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. It was viewed as popish superstition. As a result, dates in England prior to 1700 were 10 days later than those of the continent. England also observed 1700 as a leap year, so after 1700 the calendars were out of sync by 11 days. To further confuse things, England began the year on March 25.

A full account of Halley’s voyages did not appear in print until 1775 with the publication of Dalrymple’s A Collection of Voyages Chiefly in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

The correct pronunciation of Halley’s name is a subject of perennial debate. Whether Edmond himself pronounced it “Hawley” or “Hali” or “Haili” is impossible to know for certain. His name is also spelled different ways in records and correspondence, including Hailey, Haley, Haly, Hawley, and Hally. It was listed on his marriage certificate and on his final will and testament, drawn up in June 1736, as Edmond Halley. When he signed his

full signature, which was rarely, he used this spelling as well. Because he often abbreviated his first name as “Edm.,” it is often in essence misspelled “Edmund.”

Halley was never knighted, so his proper title was “Dr.,” not “Sir.” He received an honorary degree of doctor of laws from Oxford in 1710.

Scholars know little of Benjamin Middleton, the son of Colonel Middleton, who helped Halley organize the mission at the outset and may have played an important role politically in gaining the queen’s support. He clearly was an experienced seaman but apparently was not involved with Halley’s mission after the initial conception of the plan. Originally, he offered to finance the crew and supplies for the mission, but the monarchy agreed to pay for not only the vessel and its arms but to “victual and man” the Paramore. The Admiralty also built a larger ship than the 60-ton vessel Middleton first requested. Both Middleton and his servant Sir John Hoskins were to accompany Halley on the voyage, but neither is ever mentioned again after the earliest stages of preparation.

Although the Royal Society was officially established in 1660, it had met on a pro forma or ad hoc basis since roughly 1645 under the name of the Philosophical or Invisible College. Its appellation as the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge did not appear in print until 1661 and until 1663 in the second Royal Society charter. The Royal Society has existed ever since. It was essentially the first public institution for the pursuit of scientific research.

Samuel Pepys remarked on Halley’s navigation talents in his Naval Minutes, edited by J. B. Tanner and published in 1926.

Sydney Chapman claims that Halley’s mission was “the first voyage undertaken for a purely scientific object,” in his 1941 paper published in Occasional Notes No. 9, Royal Astronomical Society. His claim is based on the fact that he was the first renowned scientist to plan and execute a voyage to test his hypothesis that was fully funded by a government and not for commercial advantage. Likewise, in 1849 Alexander von Humboldt considered the voyages thusly in his Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe: “Never before, I believe, had any government fitted a naval expedition for an object whose attainment promised such advantages to practical navigation, while at the same time it deserved to be regarded as peculiarly scientific and physico-mathematical.” Similarly, in 1849, Captain S. P. Oliver stated, according to The Observatory: “We do not often

think of him as a sailor; and yet, previous to Cook, Captain E. Halley was our first scientific voyager.” Moreover, for many years after his death Halley was touted by his contemporaries as “the second [after Newton] most illustrious of the Anglo-Saxon Philosophers,” according to an 1880 issue of Nature. Although there were earlier English expeditions, they were not true scientific voyages.

Societies for other disciplines besides science would emerge in the coming century. In the early 1700s, societies for Antiquaries, Dilettanti, the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Asian studies, and more would form. Such societies and clubs provided a public forum and captive audience that when paired with the British concept of public spirit created enthusiasm for new ideas like never before.

For more on classes of sea captains, see J. D. Davies’s Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy. As Halley biographer MacPike put it: “The idea of commissioning a landsman to the command of a Kings’ ship might appear to professional seamen as sheer madness…. However, in Halley’s case the rash outrageous act was justified in the event, but only because Edmond Halley was one man in a thousand, possess[ed] of the most varied gifts and the most extraordinary versatility.”

Halley’s grandfather, Humphrey Halley, was a vintner and a haberdasher. Like assorted dynasties, the manufacture of alcohol contributed to establishing his family’s fortune.

The description of Mary’s funeral is given in Henri and Barbara van der Zee’s William and Mary.

Accounts of the Glorious Revolution can be found in books by that name written by Eveline Cruickshanks, John Miller, and K. Merle Chacksfield.

The punctuation, grammar, spellings, etc., in many direct quotations throughout the narrative have been modernized for clarity. Some original spellings were kept to capture the flavor of the time.

There was only one ship ever named the Paramore in the Royal Navy. Halley consistently spelled it that way. However, sundry other spellings are

found in other correspondence and records regarding the ship, including Paramour, Parrimore, and Parramore. She was clearly the first ship built by the Royal Navy solely for a science mission. See T. D. Manning and C. F. Walker in British Warship Names, published in London in 1959.

For an idea of the lawlessness of life at sea, sea William Byam’s account published in London in 1665. It is titled, “Exact Relation of the Most Execrable Attempts of John Allin, Committed on the Person of His Excellency Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham, Captain General of the Continent of Guiana, and of All the Caribby-Islands, and Our Lord Proprietor.”

Some simply define navigation as “finding the way.”

Teredo worms, which reach up to six inches in length, are a variety of mollusk that reproduce faster than rats on a ship. One worm can lay a million eggs a year.

For a full account of how the phenomenon of magnetic variation put Christopher Columbus off course, try Samuel Elliot Morrison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea, published by Little, Brown, in 1942.

For an outstanding account of the history of astronomical methods to determine longitude at sea, see Charles Cotter’s A History of Nautical Astronomy, pp. 180-267.

Tradition holds that debate over the origins of an embossed iron buckler may have ignited the literary Battle of the Books. Its owner, Cambridge physician and collector Dr. John Woodward believed it to be a Roman shield dating to the Gaul invasion of Rome. It proved to be made in France around 1540. For more information, see J. M. Levines’s Dr. Woodward’s Shield.

There are many books on the Battle of the Books that offer widely ranging views on its meaning and significance. The 1961 study by R. F. Jones of the rise of the scientific movement in 17th-century England entitled Ancients and Moderns is especially relevant.

Likewise, a host of titles cover the Enlightenment, including both D.

Outram’s and Hampson’s eponymous The Enlightenment and R. Porter’s Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World.

For more on the intelligentsia’s hangouts, see London Coffee Houses: A Reference Book of Coffee Houses of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries and B. Lillywhite’s London Coffee Houses.

Good sources on the history of the Royal Society include Dwight Atkinson’s Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675-1975, and Michael Hunter’s Royal Society and Its Fellows, 1660-1700, the Morphology of an Early Scientific Institution. Its governing body was a committee of 23 men, including an elected president, vice president, and two secretaries. During its early decades a single Secretary had the responsibility for publishing its Philosophical Transactions.

The first problem the French Academie des Sciences tackled was determining the precise length of the degree of the meridian. Under the direction of King Louis XIV’s powerful minister Jean Baptiste Colbert, the project was undertaken in 1669 by Jean Picard and several of his associates and completed in 1770. Picard used triangulation to solve the problem. While the Royal Society pushed its then-curator Robert Hooke to make the measurement, it was too daunting a task for an individual effort. Colbert is said to have envisioned a society that was more a factory than a market-place of ideas.

Some scholars suggest that Robert Boyle also may have supported Halley’s first venture to St. Helena. He was an active Royal Society fellow and a director of the East India Company from 1662 through 1677.

John Caswell was another candidate for the Savilian Chair of Astronomy in 1691. Gregory, of course, was successful, but on his death in 1708, Caswell, a friend of Flamsteed’s, was then appointed. If an Englishman was selected, he had to hold a master’s degree. The duties of the Savalian professors were specific but very liberal:

Geometry, in this sense, included a range of mathematics and essentially what is considered physics today. Meanwhile, the astronomy professor was to “explain the whole of the mathematical economy of Ptolemy (usually called the Almagest), applying in their proper place the discoveries of Copernicus, Gexber, and other modern writers … the whole science of optics, gnomonies, geography, and the rules of navigation in so far as they are dependent on mathematics. He must understand, however, that he is utterly debarred from professing the doctrine of nativities and all judicial astrology without exception.” Two years later in 1621, Savile’s son-in-law, William Sedley, followed suit and endowed a natural philosophy chair.

Oxford’s first two astronomy professors, John Bainbridge and John Greaves, subscribed heavily to Ptolemy’s views, so the Copernican system was not promoted until almost 1649 when Seth Ward assumed the chair. Oxford’s first professors in botany and chemistry would be set up in 1669 and 1683, respectively.

John Wallis explained his independent study of math in this way: “I had none to direct me, what books to read, or what to seek, or in what Method to proceed. For Mathematics (at that time, with us) were scarce looked upon as academical studies, but rather mechanical; as the business of traders, merchants, seamen, carpenters, surveyors of lands, or the like; and perhaps some almanac-makers in London. And amongst more than two hundred students (at that time) in our college, I do not know of any two (perhaps not any) who had more of Mathematics than I (if so much) which was then but little…. For the study of Mathematics was at that time more cultivated in London than in the Universities,” according to Allen.

In fact, the first professorship promoting the so-called new philosophy at Cambridge was established in 1663 by Henry Lucas in mathematics. Isaac Barrow was selected as the first Lucasian professor. Not surprisingly, the universities initially resented the establishment of the Royal Society

and its push to grant degrees. Oxford, in fact, thought the society “obnoxious,” according to Anthony Wood. Newton took over in 1669. Once the Royal Society was founded, there was somewhat of an exodus of science minds from Oxford to London. Wren, Hooke, and Boyle joined Ward, Wilkins, Goddard, and Rooke there. As a result, Cambridge became the leading refuge for the “new philosophy” toward the end of the 17th century. However, it was not the most modern institution in England. The Restoration Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity in 1662, which, among other things, mandated orthodoxy to the Church of England for enrollment, excluding so-called nonconformists and sparking the establishment of other institutions of higher learning.

For a good understanding of the system of patronage that existed in Halley’s day, the first chapter of Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, by Richard S. Westfall and Gerald Funk, gives a wonderful analysis. Titled “Newton, Halley, and the System of Patronage,” it explains the nature and distinguishes Newton’s relationship to both Halley and Gregory.

To learn more about the history of the Royal Observatory, see Greenwich Observatory … The Story of Britain’s Oldest Scientific Institution, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and Herstmonceux, 1675-1975. A castle used to stand on the site, which is the highest point of elevation in Greenwich’s Royal Park. For more on the observatory’s founding, see F. Willmoth’s Sir Jonas Moore and the introduction to Flamsteed’s Correspondence. Derek Howse’s chapter, “Newton, Halley, and the Royal Observatory,” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, is also very thorough.

For more on William Whiston’s work, see The Cause of the Deluge Demonstrated and Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston.

For more on Dampier, see his New Voyage Round the World, with an introduction by Sir Albert Gray. Diana and Michael Preston’s A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier is a solid, contemporary retelling of his adventures.

For a look at other scientists’ impact on the evolution of marine research, Margaret Deacon offers a thorough overview in her 1997 work, Scientists at Sea, 1650-1900: A Study of Marine Science.

A deeper look at the origins of the study of natural history can be found in T. Rice’s Voyages of Discovery: Three Centuries of Natural History Exploration.

For more on the development of the compass and the azimuth compass, in particular, see Jonkers’s chapter, “Following the Iron Arrow,” in his Earth’s Magnetism in the Age of Sail. The azimuth observation was the most difficult of the compass readings. Technically, it is the horizontal arc between the local meridian and the vertical plan through the sighted object and the observer.

Needle deflection that is attributable to nearby iron is called magnetic deviation. The magnetic properties of hard and soft iron cause such variation. Hard iron is not readily magnetized but retains its magnetism permanently. Soft iron is easily realigned with passing magnetic fields. All iron materials possess both hard and soft properties but to varying degrees, which determine their overall magnetization.

Portugal’s Pedro Nunez was the first to explain that, if the Sun’s height and declination were known, its amplitude, that’s the angle from due east or west that the Sun rises or sets, could be found by spherical trigonometry.

In 1677, Pepys, in his role as Admiralty secretary implemented the naval lieutenant’s examination. The policy served to promote mathematical skill among naval officers and navigators.

Knowing the “place of the Moon,” relative to the Sun or stars at a given moment, was required to use the lunar distance method to determine longitude. Throughout Halley’s lifetime, it would remain an impossible feat. But in the 1760s it became a viable option on the basis of Newton’s theory of the Moon, which was published in David Gregory’s Astronomiae Physicae in 1702.

Halley’s approach was based on the saros or eclipse cycle of 18 years and 11 days or that the relative position of Sun and Moon repeats every saros, that is, every 223 lunations. In this way the place of the Moon could be predicted relative to the Sun by looking at its observed location 18 or 36 years earlier. On his Atlantic expeditions, Halley managed to use his method successfully by observing occultation and appulses of stars by the Moon.

For a detailed and well-researched account on the life of sailors during this time, see Peter Earle’s Sailors. I am indebted to Earle’s research on this topic.

There are a flurry of interesting pirate books out there. David Cordingly has authored and edited several, including Life Among the Pirates: The Romance and the Reality and Pirates Terror on the High Seas, from the Caribbean to the South China Sea.

To learn more about the Corsairs, see the Corsairs of Malta and Barbary, published in 1970 also by Peter Earle.

Halley described the polypus in the May 1, 1689, Journal Books of the Royal Society, which was extracted by H. W. Robinson.

For more on the politics of Brazil, see the Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750, Growing Pains of a Colonial Society.

James Burney described the tarpaulin attitude well in his 1816 Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Seas. He writes: “Respect for science, however, did not operate sufficiently strong on the Officers of Dr, or rather Captain, Halley’s ship, to prevent their taking offence at being put under the command of a man who had risen without going through the regular course of service with the Royal Navy.”

Through the 19th century, studies at Oxford University were governed by the Laudian Statutes of 1636, which is also known as the Caroline Code. Since Archbishop Laud was a member of the clergy, he emphasized theological studies. The rigor of his regulations hindered the study of science as they were chiefly intended to bolster education in terms of the tenets of the Royalists and the High Church.

To earn a master’s at Oxford, the average student had to study three additional years, or 12 terms, completing courses in Greek, which covered Homer, Demoshtes, Isocrates, and Euripides; Aristotelian metaphysics; more geometry, astronomy, natural philosophy and Hebrew, using the Bible and the work of Lucius Florus and other ancients, according to Phyllis Allen’s interpretation in the Journal of the History of Ideas.

The term “round robin” first appeared in print in England in 1546 in reference to the sacrament of communion. Calvin used the term derisively in the context of blasphemous practices, according to Words@Random.

For an analysis of Halley’s introduction to Newton’s Principia, see I.

Bernard Cohen’s “Halley’s Two Essays on Newton’s Principia” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

To learn about Newton’s surprising ideas about alchemy, check out B. J. T. Dobbs in “Newton as Alchemist and Theologian” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

Paul Lorrain did a comprehensive job of chronicling events at Newgate in the early 18th century.

After Lieutenant Edward Harrison’s court-martial proceedings, he offered the data he had collected, which at times differed from Halley’s observations, to John Flamsteed. Harrison was well aware of their rivalry. Flamsteed was interested and had Harrison’s journal copied in March 1700, according to Flamsteed’s correspondence.

Dampier would establish his place as a seafarer in other ways. On a subsequent privateering expedition in 1704, Dampier stranded an unruly Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk at his request on the island of Juan Fernandez off the coast of Chile. The incident inspired Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Dampier wrote extensive memoirs of his voyages in which he had only praise for Halley and his quest: “I cannot but hope that the ingenuous Author, Captain Halley, who to his profound skill in all theories of these kinds hath added and is adding continually personal experiments, will ever long oblige the world with a fuller discovery of the course of the variations, which hath hitherto been a secret.”

In his appendix to the 1710 edition of English scholar Thomas Streete’s Astronimia Carolina, Halley noted that practice observations from the deck of a moving ship were possible in mild conditions with telescopes of five to six feet in length.

For more on the role of the eclipses of Jupiter’s moons, see Albert Van Helden’s contribution, “Longitude and the Satellites of Jupiter,” to the Quest for Longitude.

To put navigation in better perspective, see J. E. D. Williams’s From Sails to Satellites: The Origin and Development of Navigational Science for a worthwhile read.

In Paris, Cassini and his colleague Jean Richer had estimated in 1672 the distance between the Sun and Earth using observations of Mars at particular positions. Based on observations from Paris and French Guiana, he calculated the AU to be 87 million miles. Though smaller than the real AU, its validity wasn’t widely acknowledged until the Venus work was completed.

At this time the Union flag bore St. George’s Cross of England on St. Andrew’s Cross of Scotland, which had been in use since 1603 when the crowns were united. This happened after Queen Elizabeth I died without an heir. James VI of Scotland became James I of England, marking the start of the Stuart dynasty in England.

In 1697 William Dampier sailed to Australia in the pirate ship Cygnet and made the first landing by an English explorer in Australia. The spot where he came ashore is to be renamed Dampier’s Landing, in his honor. It is likely that on this voyage he collected two plant specimens, an Acacia and Synaphea. Two years later, in 1699, sailing in HMS Roebuck, Dampier landed on Dirk Hartog Island in western Australia and made a collection of specimens of flora as well as drawings of birds, fish, and other animals of this New World.

To commemorate the tri-centenary of the voyage, Dampier’s collection of 24 plant specimens was exhibited at the Museum of Western Australia, on loan from England’s Oxford Herbarium. The Roebuck was shipwrecked on the voyage back to England, but miraculously Dampier’s specimens survived. An account of this voyage is found in his book, A Voyage to New Holland. The well-known story Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift, was based partly on Dampier’s travels.

A good source on Cook’s expeditions is T. C. Mitchell’s Captain Cook and the South Pacific.

Halley described his diving engine in the March 6, 1988-1989, Journal Book of the Royal Society, extracted by H. W. Robinson.

For more on the medical science of the times, see Maureen Wallers’s 1700: Scenes from London Life.

The first meteorological diagram was published in 1684 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London (no. 169), based on barometric observations made at Oxford, according to G. Hellman, a renowned German historian of science.

See History of the Russian Fleet During the Reign of Peter the Great, by a Contemporary Englishman to follow up on Peter’s interests in building his naval forces.

David W. Waters’s “Captain Edmond Halley, F.R.S. Royal Navy, and the Practice of Navigation,” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, provides more details on Halley’s contributions in this arena.

For help explaining the basics of geomagnetism, Wallace H. Campbell’s Introduction to Geomagnetic Fields was very useful.

Some scholars credit Robert Norman, an English seaman and compass crafter, for inspiring Gilbert’s De Magnete. In 1581, Norman published The New Attractive in London. In it, using science-based methods, he details his discovery of the magnetic dip.

For a contemporary synthesis of the relationship between magnetism and navigation, see A. R. T. Jonkers’s Earth’s Magnetism in the Age of Sail. Jonkers is more skeptical of Halley’s contributions than many other scholars.

Two of Halley’s four magnetic poles were proven not to exist in 1817, when a complete chart of magnetic meridians was first published. This is explained in full in an article by Sydney Chapman that appeared in Nature in 1943.

According to MacPikes’s Hevelius, Flamsteed, and Halley, no serious

scientist has ever taken seriously Flamsteed’s claims that Halley borrowed ideas from Perkins’s theory. However, in a December 12, 1700, letter to Flamsteed, Perkin’s brother, Thomas Perkins, stated that Halley bought his papers two years earlier, soon after his brother’s death.

Norman J. W. Thrower does an excellent job of placing Halley’s contributions to cartography into historical perspective in his recent Maps & Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society.

Halley apparently believed that Mercator didn’t deserve as much credit as he received for developing the method of map projection that emerged in 1569. For this reason, Halley proposed the name “nautical” for when the charts were used by navigators. Mercator, however, stuck.

Norman J. W. Thrower’s chapter, “Longitude in the Context of Cartography,” in the Quest for Longitude goes into more detail.

Alexander von Humbolt first proposed the words “isogonic,” “isoclinic,” and “isodynamic” to describe lines of equal variation, dip, and magnetic field strength, respectively, according to Charles Cotter.

Two other manuscripts exist that detail isobaths, or equal depths of water. Although Halley was unaware of their existence, they were published in 1584 and 1697, respectively. But none published lines of equal declination.

For a complete biography on Sloane, try A. MacGregors’s Sir Hans Sloane: Collector, Scientist, Antiquary.

Researchers have branded magnetic devices that supposedly alleviate pain as “nonsense.” According to the “Wellness Letter,” published by the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health, “There is no good scientific evidence—or any logical reason to believe—that magnets can relieve pain.”

For more commentary on his Atlantic charts, see E. A. Reeves’s 1918 article “Halley’s Magnetic Variation Charts” in Geographical Journal, vol. 51, pp. 237-240.

Even California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might enjoy R. V. Tooley’s California as an Island, from the Map Collectors’ Series, no. 8, published in London in 1964.

Henry Coley is quoted in Jonkers’s chapter, “Plotting the Third Coordinate,” of Earth’s Magnetism in the Age of Sail. This source also details the assorted tables of magnetic variation available before Halley’s voyage.

Flamsteed’s 1686 letters to Towneley are available in the Royal Society’s manuscript collection but have also been published.

Latin translation by Sydney Chapman’s wife, as published in Chapman, 1941.

The journal from Halley’s third voyage was never published, or if it was all records of its printing were lost. This makes its interpretation for historians more difficult.

For more on the publication of Flamsteed’s Historia Coelestis, see Westfall’s Never at Rest or Christianson’s In the Presence of the Creator.

A. Chapman, 1982, The Preface to John Flamstted’s “Historia Colestis Britannica,” National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

For a concise and complete account of how the clockmaker solved the longitude quandary, see Dava Sobel’s rather brilliant Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time.

The true nature of so-called secular variation wasn’t completely understood until the mid-19th century. The ever-so-gradual slowing of Earth’s rotation causes the apparent effect. The lunar month appears shorter over centuries because day length increases. Nonetheless, the true effect is similar enough to Halley’s description that the astronomical community generally credits him with originally discovering the phenomenon.

The bay of Tonkin’s tidal range was proportional to the versed sine of twice the Moon’s declination.

“Captains’ Letters 1698-1701,” Admiralty Archives, Public Records Office, London, quoted by E. F. MacPike, op. cit., p. 116.

More detail on his chart can be found in a 1942 article in Geographical Journal by J. Proudman entitled “Halley’s Tidal Chart,” vol. 100, pp. 174-176.

For more on La Manche, try English Channel: A Celebration of the Channel’s Role in England’s History.

The translation of Halley’s ode to Queen Anne was done by Sydney Chapman’s wife and published in his 1941 paper.

For a complete biography on Queen Anne, Green’s book on the subject suffices. And for Queen Anne in context, see Cruickshanks’s Glorious Revolution.

One of the best summaries of Halley’s hollow Earth hypothesis is found in a 1992 issue of the Journal for History and Astronomy, “The Hollow World of Edmond Halley.”

David Kubrin’s chapter, “Such an Impertinently Litigious Lady,” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants also gives a strong summary of the struggle between Hooke and Halley and Newton. Also see Hooke’s Posthumous Works.

For more on the impact and distribution of Halley’s charts, see W. F. J. Morzer Bruyns, “Longitude in the Context of Navigation,” in the Quest for Longitude.

A full version of the original Longitude Act is published in Humphrey Quill’s John Harrison: The Man Who Found Longitude, pp. 225-227. The prize was actually 10,000 pounds for determining longitude within one degree, 15,000 pounds for within 45 minutes, and 20,000 pounds for within 30 seconds.

Ultimately, the 20,000-pound prize was awarded to John Harrison for his marine clock.

After obtaining a certain amount of experience as a commander in the Royal Navy, a captain was “posted” and awarded the title of post-captain.

For an excellent chronicle of the return of Halley’s comet in 1985-1986, Peter Lancaster Brown’s Halley’s Comet & the Principia is a recommended read.

In 1729, Halley was elected a foreign member of the Academie de Sciences in Paris.

Some consider Halley’s original burial outside a parish church in Lee to be a travesty. The slight was rectified in November 1986 when a memorial at Westminster Abbey was dedicated to Halley.

Norman Thrower first published this translation of the inscription on Halley’s capstone.

Sir George Clark credited the restoration of Charles II for making the scientific movement fashionable in The Later Stuarts.

For a more in-depth view of the history of magnetism, Gerrit Verschuur’s Hidden Attraction: The Mystery and History of Magnetism is very informative and well done.

For an interesting exposition on the role of Samuel Pepys in building the British Navy, see Arthur Herman’s The World as We Know It Today.

For further reading on the development of international trade, try P. D. Curtin’s Cross-Cultural Trade in World History and R. Robert’s Chartered Companies and Their Role in the Development of Overseas Trade.

W. Doyles’s The Old European Order 1660-1800 was also helpful in writing this epilogue.

In the Quest for Longitude, A. J. Turner expresses the importance of failure to scientific progress well in the context of longitude in his chapter, “In the Wake of the Act, But Mainly Before.” He writes: “These unsuccessful efforts are just as much part of the development of understanding of the longitude problem as their more successful rivals. And they are just as worthy of study.”

Norman Thrower explains Halley’s relationship to his patrons eloquently in “The Royal Patrons of Edmond Halley, with Special Reference to His Maps” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

The Boston Gazette and Country Journal carried the 12-part series on the return of the comet. All 12 parts are published in Craig Waff’s “Tales from the First International Halley Watch (1755-59).” Waff’s chapter entitled “The First International Halley Watch” in Standing on the Shoulders of Giants goes into much greater detail on the comet’s return.

S. P. Oliver is quoted from his paper on Halley published in 1880 in The Observatory.