Non-Fiction Book Club––

Where Are We?

The Importance Of Longitude To Navigation

By Dottie Evans

Members of the Booth Library’s Non-Fiction Book Club like nothing better than a lively discussion about scientific problems and their possible solutions.

“We read biography, autobiography, history, and current events, and we try to include books on our list that present thought-provoking problems,” book club leader Howard Gorham said recently.

Mr Gorham formulated the club’s reading list through searching the Internet, and said, “If someone comes up with an idea for another nonfiction classic, we add it to the list.” If there is a video connected to the book, they make note of that also. Membership is broad and diverse, since many individuals travel extensively, especially during the winter months.

“You never know who will come, but it’s always lively,” said Mr Gorham.

“We could use more women, though.”

So far, the club’s membership seems to be made up predominantly of men, but whether the monthly topic is history or science, war or space travel, members welcome any contributions to the discussion. Often the expertise and experience of its members, who come from diverse professional backgrounds, makes for a lively debate.

Certainly, this was the case November 4, when the club’s most recent selection –– Longitude by Dava Sobel –– was presented by member Rich Recht.

Mr Recht presented the common dilemma faced by 18th Century navigators.

When the early explorers set out to cross the oceans, how did they navigate? We imagine them looking for the North Star, and perhaps determining latitude by using a sextant to take triangular readings –– assuming they were not plagued by cloudy or stormy weather. We understand that knowing one’s latitude means knowing where one is, north and south, on the earth.

But what about east and west? Early navigators needed to know longitude as well, but there was no reliable way to figure it out until the end of the 18th Century.

“Since Christopher Columbus had no way to figure longitude in 1492, he just sailed south until he got to a certain latitude and then turned west, and he kept going until he hit what he thought was going to be Asia, the southern coast of China, or the spice islands of Java,” said Mr Gorham.

“He sailed along that latitude until he found land. That was the only way he could do it. And he didn’t even know how far away that land was,” Mr Gorham added.

The problem of figuring out longitude was finally solved by English carpenter and clockmaker John Harrison, the subject of the nonfiction club’s November discussion.

“His perseverance was remarkable,” Mr Recht said of the inventor, Mr Harrison, but his lowly station in a class-conscious society meant that at first, his work was not given the recognition it deserved. Mr Harrison persisted in finding a solution through the creation of an accurate timepiece that could be taken on board ships, but it was 40 years before his invention was accepted and put into common use.

John Harrison (1693–1776): Perseverance Pays Off

John Harrison was spurred on to working on the problem by the British Board of Longitude when it announced in 1714 that a reward of 20,000 pounds would be given to anyone who could invent a way to find a ship’s longitude anywhere on earth to an accuracy of ½ degree (which is equal to 30 minutes of longitude).

“His design was based on the reasoning that an accurate clock set to the time in Greenwich, England, site of the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude, would be carried on a ship and read at noon local time to determine the ship’s longitude,” stated Mr Recht, reading from a Microsoft Encyclopedia reference.

In the process of designing an accurate timepiece that would not be dependent upon pendulums or moving parts subject to moisture and the movement of waves, Mr Harrison made five prototype clocks, each one more compact and efficient than the last, until his invention was finally accepted and tested at sea.

Longtime Sandy Hook resident Bob Stokes, also a member of the Non-Fiction Book Club, had brought along his naval navigation charts for the Longitude discussion, which he had used during World War II when he was a skipper of an LCT (Landing Craft Tank) traveling across the Pacific Ocean between Okinawa and Japan.

“We used these plotting sheets with latitude and longitude shown clearly. We got a fix, and used our sextant to measure the angle from a heavenly body to the horizon. They still teach that in Annapolis,” Mr Stokes said.

Three Other Booth Library Book Clubs

 “We’ve got three other groups dealing with fiction in its various forms,” said library programs direction Kim Weber.

“The Daytime Book Club, which meets the second Monday of the month at 1 pm, concentrates on the classics in fiction, such as Jane Austen, and the club was organized by Alisa Andrews. In November, they are reading The Orchard by Anton Chekhov, and in December they will read Embers by Sandor Marai.

“The Mystery Book Club is self-explanatory. It meets the third Tuesday of every month at 7 pm and the moderator is Liz Arneth.

“The Evening Book Club meets the third Thursday of the month at 7:30 pm and discusses books selected by the group, usually of more general appeal. They like to mix it up a little more,” said Ms Weber, who serves as moderator for this group.

Their November choice was Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy and in January, they will be reading Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz.

Membership is open for any of these four Booth Library Book Clubs and further information may be obtained by calling the Booth Library at 426-4533.