A Description of several instruments for Measuring a Ship's Way: With an Account of his Patent Perpetual Log,...

NAUTICAL INSTRUMENTS

GOWER, R[ichard] H[all], in the India Service. A Description of several instruments for Measuring a Ship's Way through the Water, By...With an Account of his Patent Perpetual Log, and how the same principle may be applied to shew the absolute velocity of the Wind, and the depths of the Sea. 8vo, modern cloth backed marbled boards, half-title, title, [5]-32 + 2 copper engraved plates. London: Printed for the Author, 1792.

First Edition of author's rare first nautical work, with the half-title. ESTC locates two copies in England (BL & NMM), and two copies in this country (BA & NYPL). Gower (fl. 1767-1833), a sea captain and naval architect, "had been shocked by the low standard of navigation which he found in the convoy which took him to the East Indies...He devised a patent log, part of the workmanship being entrusted to Alexander Grant, and the sole rights of sale vested in Messrs Gilbert [& Wright] of 148 Leadenhall Street. He refers to "the indefatigable Mr. Stancliff' as cutting the scale on his optical instrument with his dividing machine. He then tried the instrument out with John Adams, a mathematical teacher of Edmonton, who has been identified as a reviser of textbooks for Mount and Page, the chart-sellers."-Taylor, The Mathematical Practitioners of Hanoverian England 1714-1840, #840. "In 1787 he devised an instrument which measured a vessel's way through the water with greater accuracy than had previously been possible."-ODNB. The followng year he wrote A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Seamanship, which long remained a standard work. We trace no copies at auction. 84574