Page:Edinburgh Review Volume 59.djvu/282

270 Such are, for example, tables of interest, discount, and exchange, tables of annuities, and other tables necessary in life insurances; tables of rates of various kinds necessary in general commerce. But the science in which, above all others, the most extensive and accurate tables are indispensable, is Astronomy; with the improvement and perfection of which is inseparably connected that of the kindred art of Navigation. We scarcely dare hope to convey to the general reader any thing approaching to an adequate notion of the multiplicity and complexity of the tables necessary for the purposes of the astronomer and navigator. We feel, nevertheless, that the truly national importance which must attach to any perfect and easy means of producing those tables cannot be at all estimated, unless we state some of the previous calculations necessary in order to enable the mariner to determine, with the requisite certainty and precision, the place of his ship.

In a word, then, all the purely arithmetical, trigonometrical, and logarithmic tables already mentioned, are necessary, either immediately or remotely, for this purpose. But in addition to these, a great number of tables, exclusively astronomical, are likewise indispensable. The predictions of the astronomer, with respect to the positions and motions of the bodies of the firmament, are the means, and the only means, which enable the mariner to prosecute his art. By these he is enabled to discover the distance of his ship from the Line, and the extent of his departure from the meridian of Greenwich, or from any other meridian to which the astronomical predictions refer. The more numerous, minute, and accurate these predictions can be made, the greater will be the facilities which can be furnished to the mariner. But the computation of those tables, in which the future position of celestial objects are registered, depend themselves upon an infinite variety of other tables which never reach the hands of the mariner. It cannot be said that there is any table whatever, necessary for the astronomer, which is unnecessary for the navigator.

The purposes of the marine of a country whose interests are so inseparably connected as ours are with the improvement of the art of navigation, would be very inadequately fulfilled, if our navigators were merely supplied with the means of determining by Nautical Astronomy the position of a ship at sea. It has been well observed by the Committee of the Astronomical Society, to whom the recent improvement of the Nautical Almanac was confided, that it is not by those means merely by which the seaman is enabled to determine the position of his vessel at sea, that the full intent and purpose of what is usually called Nautical Astronomy are answered. This object is merely a part of that comprehensive and important subject; and might be