Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/61

V ] His speculations had an object. The Observatory at Greenwich had specific instructions to work out a better method of finding the longitude at sea, and the English, Dutch, and French had for some time been offering large money rewards for this. Emanuel informed Benzelius, still in the same letter, that he had weighed the plans of all but found they would not serve, and that he had "thought up a method which is infallible, by means of the moon, of which I am sure that it is the best that can be given."

Was it? He continued to work at this, and to believe it the best method, and he quotes Edmund Halley as having agreed with him "orally." At any rate, an astronomer of our own day has studied the question and reported that the method seems entirely correct.7

But when young Swedberg finally presented ten copies of his method for the award, he did not win it. He inferred, probably correctly, that it was because the commissioners were prepared to reject any lunar method in favor of the more practical one made possible by Harrison's chronometer. Still it was a good piece of work for so young a man to have been engaged on. His letters bristle with parallaxes and lunar tables. He had many talks with Flamsteed. Longitude by the moon continued to be his chief interest.

Professor Elfvius of Upsala wanted him to be sure to acquire the art of lensgrinding, as well as to find out what the English learned really thought of Newton's theory of gravitation. It seemed to the Swedish professor "unreasonable" that one planetary body should gravitate toward another—something that smacked of "pure abstraction" rather than physics. Many other tasks he confided to his ex-pupil, finishing with the postscript that he recommended to "Herr Swedberg's admirable curiosity" to search out all that could be of service to science in Sweden.

Emanuel was a tireless scout and careful purchasing agent of books and instruments for his former teachers, and these missions also served to bring him in touch with the great scientists of England. He wanted especially to go to Oxford, but August, 1711, came and he had to write to Benzelius: "I am left here in want of money. I am surprised that my father has not taken more thought of me than to let me live on 200 riksdaler (about $250) for what will soon be sixteen months . . . it is hard to live like the wench in Skaane, without food and drink."