Page 38 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

It would be possible to write an elaborate explanation of longitude and
of what needs to be done to fix it precisely for any given point on the
earth’s surface. What we are concerned with here, however, is not so
much technical detail as the accepted historical facts about humanity’s
growing knowledge of the mysteries of longitude. Among these facts, this
is the most important: until a breakthrough invention in the eighteenth
century, cartographers and navigators were unable to fix longitude with
any kind of precision. They could only make guesses which were usually
inaccurate by many hundreds of miles, because the technology had not
yet been developed to allow them to do the job properly.
Latitude north or south of the equator did not pose such a problem: it
could be worked out by means of angular measurements of the sun and
stars taken with relatively simple instruments. But to find longitude
equipment of an altogether different and superior calibre was needed,
which could combine position measurements with time measurements.
Throughout the span of known history the invention of such equipment
had remained beyond the capacities of scientists, but by the beginning of
the eighteenth century, with rapidly increasing sea traffic, a mood of
impatience and urgency had set in. In the words of an authority on the
period, ‘The search for longitude overshadowed the life of every man
afloat, and the safety of every ship and cargo. Accurate measurement
seemed an impossible dream and “discovering the longitude” had become
a stock phrase in the press like “pigs might fly”.’
3

3 Simon Bethon and Andrew Robinson, The Shape of the World: The Mapping and
Discovery of the Earth, Guild Publishing, London, 1991, p. 117.

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