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A Brief History of the Method of Fixing by Horizontal Angles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2010

Charles H. Cotter
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Extract

John Hadley (1670–1744), Vice-President of the Royal Society of London, communicated his ‘Description of a new Instrument for taking Angles’ to the Society on 13 May 1731. Hadley's invention for the first time provided the navigator with an instrument by which he could measure altitudes of celestial bodies with ease and accuracy on board a lively ship at sea. It was not however until about 1750, when the instrument was to be found on board vessels of the East India Company, that Hadley's quadrant (or octant as it is sometimes called) rapidly came into general use.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 528 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1972

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References

REFERENCES

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