Compass

A Story of Exploration and Innovation

By: Alan Gurney

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Paperback | 1 August 2005 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

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322 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.0 x 1.0 x 0.1

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The fascinating and disaster-strewn history of the search to perfect the essential navigational device. This book chronicles the misadventures of those who attempted to perfect the compass, an instrument so precious to sixteenth-century seamen that, by law, any man found tampering with it had his hand pinned to the mast with a dagger. From the time man first took to the seas until only one thousand years ago, sight and winds were the sailor's only navigational aids. It was not until the development of the compass that maps and charts could be used with any accuracyeven so, it would be hundreds of years and thousands of shipwrecks before the marvelous instrument was perfected. And its history up to modern times is filled with the stories of disasters that befell sailors who misused it. In this wonderfully written book, Alan Gurney brings to life the instrument Victor Hugo called "the soul of the ship."

Industry Reviews

[An] engaging foray into vistas and voyages of the past.-- "Publishers Weekly"

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Preface and Acknowledgments	p. 9
Prologue	p. 13
Dead Reckoning	p. 19
Needle and Stone	p. 31
The Rose of the Winds	p. 41
Variation and Dip	p. 55
Edmond Halley, Polymath	p. 69
To Compass the Globe	p. 77
Halleyan Lines	p. 87
Dr. Gowin Knight and His Magnetic Machine	p. 99
Knight's Compass	p. 109
The Shocks of Tempestuous Seas	p. 119
Any Old Iron, Any Old Iron	p. 135
The Book of Bearings	p. 149
The Flinders Bar	p. 161
Soft Iron, Hard Iron	p. 175
"An Evil So Pregnant with Mischief"	p. 187
Deviation, the Hydra-Headed Monster	p. 199
The "Inextricable Entangled Web"	p. 211
Gray's Binnacle	p. 225
Thomson's Compass and Binnacle	p. 235
The Selling of a Compass	p. 247
A Question of Liquidity	p. 261
Epilogue: From Needle to Spinning Top	p. 273
Deviation	p. 277
Notes	p. 281
Bibliography	p. 297
Index	p. 307
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Compass

A Story of Exploration and Innovation

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

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