A Compleat System of Navigation: In Two Parts. I. Atkinson's Epitome. II. Navigation New Modell'd: Or, The Whole Art Performed, without Tables or Instruments; Exact Tables of the Sun's Declination, from the Year 1761, to the Year 1792 for Every Day at Noon under the Meridian of London; A Table of Difference of Latitude and Departure; A Table of Meridional Parts; A Table of Logarithms.

ATKINSON, James, & Henry Wilson.

Published by Dublin: Boulter Grierson, 1767

About this Item

A handsomely bound copy of a later edition of this navigational treatise, first published in 1750. It covers the practical geometry, trigonometry, and astronomy of sailing and while also including a dictionary of sea terms and many logarithmic tables. This copy contains a tipped-in leaf of notes in a contemporary hand. James Atkinson (c.1667-1715) was a "well-known instrument-maker, mathematical teacher, and text-book writer who had been servant to Andrew Wakely and succeeded to his shop on the south bank of the Thames" (Taylor, p. 254). Henry Wilson, meanwhile, taught mathematics and navigation in the north. "He wrote his rather formal and old-fashioned text-book, Navigation New Modell'd in 1714, and was later at sea as mathematician to Admiral Byng to whose son he gave instruction" (Taylor, p. 291). ESTC T186114. Eva Germaine Rimington Taylor, The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor & Stuart England, 1954. Octavo (195 x 126 mm), pp. x, 11-286, 425-435, 153-184, 287-412, 1-150. With 16 folding wood-engraved or engraved plates (plate 10 a variant), illustrations and tables in text. With additional engraved leaf and leaf of contemporary manuscript notes on trigonometry tipped in opposite p. 94. Mid-20th-century green morocco, spine gilt-lettered direct, raised bands rolled in gilt, compartments decorated with fouled anchor device in gilt, boards with double fillet gilt borders, board edges rolled in gilt, turn-ins tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges gilt, binder's stamp of Brian Frost & Company, Bath on front free endpaper verso. Gilt stamp of the bibliophile Brent Gration-Maxfield on front pastedown and his pencil annotations on front free endpaper, blind stamp of Richard M. Woods on front free endpaper, very occasional contemporary manuscript notes in margins. Spine a little sunned, extremities a touch scratched, contents trimmed at head with minor loss, some small holes and stub tears on plates: a very good copy.

Seller Inventory # 189376

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Compleat System of Navigation: In Two Parts. I. Atkinson's Epitome. II. Navigation New Modell'd: Or, The Whole Art Performed, without Tables or Instruments; Exact Tables of the Sun's Declination, from the Year 1761, to the Year 1792 for Every Day at Noon under the Meridian of London; A Table of Difference of Latitude and Departure; A Table of Meridional Parts; A Table of Logarithms.
• Publisher: Dublin: Boulter Grierson, 1767