The Marine Chronometer: Its History and Development

Since its original publication in 1923, The Marine Chronometer has been a seminal work on the history and development of marine timekeepers. Although long out of print, R.T. Gould’s work has garnered a passionate audience of fans. This centennial reprint brings Gould’s magnum opus back into print with a new design and an affordable price tag. Prior to 1760, the problem of finding the longitude at sea had baffled the greatest scientific minds of the age—Newton, Leibnitz, Halley, Huyghens, and countless others. In fact, the state of affairs seemed so hopeless that the “discovery of the longitude” became a common English expression for an impossibility. Hoping to stimulate developments along these lines, the British Government offered a £20,000 reward in 1714 to any man who could produce a reliable method of finding the longitude. The solution came, of all places, from a man neither expertly seafaring nor rigorously scientific—John Harrison, a humble mechanic from Yorkshire. Through years of toil and patient improvement, Harrison at last produced H4, a timekeeper accurate enough to find the longitude even in the rough conditions at sea. This was the birth of the modern chronometer, carried to completion by the little band of men who followed in Harrison’s steps: Pierre Le Roy, Thomas Mudge, Ferdinand Berthoud, John Arnold, and Thomas Earnshaw. Part 1 tells the story of those pioneers: their lives, their work, and above all, their character. Part 2 delves into the technical details of the later developments (1785–1923) of the chronometer: the workings of the compensation balance, the inception of Breguet’s tourbillon, and much more. With 600+ footnotes and accompanied by more than 120 plates and figures, The Marine Chronometer: Its History and Development is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of horology. — ISBN13: 9798856764818