The Day the World Discovered the Sun (35 page)

Note that this value is very close to related eighteenth-century calculations. In 1771, for instance, the Oxford University astronomy professor Thomas Hornsby used different equations to find that comparing Vardø-Tahiti data yields = 8.639 arc seconds.
⁹

Finding the corresponding distance to the sun is just one more step, involving
R
_E
, the radius of the earth:

C
HAPTER
1: A S
TAR IN THE
S
UN

1
. Benjamin Martin,
Venus in the Sun . . .
(London: W. Owen, 1761), xi.

2
. Council Minutes of the Royal Society, 4:254, cited in Harry Woolf,
The Transits of Venus
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 85. The smartest mathematicians and philosophes of the day knew that vast improvements in the accuracy of measurement of the sun's distance might yield only marginal improvements in predicting the moon's and planets' positions in the skies months and years in advance (e.g., Tobias Mayer, discussed in S. A. Wepster,
Between Theory and Observations
[London: Springer, 2010]). Discovering the physical size scales of the solar system was the most pressing scientific problem in astronomy at the time, and astronomers—because of their ability to generate crucial nautical charts for mariners and admirals the world over—enjoyed no small degree of access to royal funding because of their solutions to the problems of longitude.

3
. Johann Pezzl, “Sketch of Vienna,” in H. C. Robbins Landon, ed.,
Mozart and Vienna
(New York: Schirmer, 1991).

4
. Don Michael Randel, “Joseph Haydn,” in
The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 367.

5
. In the 1760s, outer space was considered the realm of giant, exalted objects like planets and stars. No one dared suggest that mundane things like rocks could be floating out there too. F. Brandstätter, “History of the Meteorite Collection of the Natural History Museum of Vienna,” in
The History of Meteoritics and Key Meteorite Collections
(London: Geological Society, 2006), 123.

6
. Van Swieten never convinced Chappe that electroshock therapy had any curative powers.

7
.
Science, Technology, and Warfare: Proceedings of the Third Military History Symposium
, ed. Monte D. Wright and Lawrence J. Paszek (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001), 78–79; Derek Edward Dawson
Beales,
Joseph II: In the Shadow of Maria Theresa, 1741–1780
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 338; Bruce McConachy, “The Roots of Artillery Doctrine: Napoleonic Artillery Tactics Reconsidered,”
Journal of Military History
, July 2001, 619–620.

8
. Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche,
A Journey into Siberia Made by Order of the King of France
(London: T. Jefferys, 1770), 25.

9
. Chappe,
Journey
, 23.

10
. Carol Jones Neuman, “The Historical Background,” in
Drawings by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince for the Voyage en Sibérie
(Philadelphia: Rosenbach Museum and Library, 1986), 21–26.

11
. Michel Mervaud, introduction to
Chappe d'Auteroche: Voyage en Sibérie fait par ordre du roi en 1761
(Oxford, U.K.: Voltaire Foundation, 2004), 6–15; Per Pippin Aspaas, private communication to author, January 3, 2012.

12
. Chappe,
Journey
, 46.

13
. Chappe,
Journey
, 47. Chappe says “the eldest [of the girls] was not above seventeen.” Elsewhere he notes that girls in the Russian provinces were married at thirteen.

14
. Chappe,
Journey
, 48.

15
. Chappe,
Journey
, 49; Olga Yu. Elina, “Private Botanical Gardens in Russia: Between Noble Culture and Scientific Professionalization (1760s–1917),” in
The Global and the Local: The History of Science and the Cultural Integration of Europe: Proceedings of the Second ICESHS
(Cracow, 2006),
www.2iceshs.cyfronet.pl
.

16
. Chappe,
Journey
, 52–53.

17
. Chappe,
Journey
, 301.

18
. Solar noon also coincides with the sun crossing an imaginary “meridian” line in the sky extending from directly north to directly south.

19
. The present description is a facsimile of Chappe's actual latitude-calculating technique, chosen for its comparative simplicity. Technically, stellar charts give a star's “declination,” the altitude of a star as measured from the “celestial equator,” the projection of the earth's equator onto the sky. Calculating latitude via a star's altitude, then, involves first calculating the altitude of the celestial equator—which is the observed stellar altitude minus its declination, corrected for additional effects like atmospheric refraction. One's latitude, then, is 90 degrees minus the altitude of the celestial equator. This is the process Chappe actually followed. “Mr. L'Abbé Chappe d'Auteroche”:
Memoire du passage de Venus sur le soleil
(St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of the Sciences, 1762),
http://tinyurl.com/262daq8
. Translated by Mark Anderson.

20
. Ibid. Astronomer Eric W. Elst discovered the present-day location of Chappe's observatory, at latitude 58 degrees, 11 arc minutes, 43 arc seconds; longitude 68 degrees, 15 arc minutes, 30 arc seconds. Chappe settled on 58 degrees, 12 arc minutes, and 22 arc seconds as his final answer (Ibid.). This represents a 39-arc-second difference between Chappe's calculation and modern determinations. Each arc second of latitude is 0.02 miles on the earth, which puts Chappe's error at 0.78 miles.
www.holbachfoundation.org/astro/Details_obs.Chappe.htm
.

21
. Le Prince likely did not journey with Chappe to Tobolsk but instead traveled around Russia and Siberia separately. Upon returning to Paris, though, the artist did work in close collaboration with Chappe when preparing the drawings (on which the book's engravings would be based) for
Voyage en Sibérie
. Neuman, “Historical Background,” 11.

22
. Neuman, “Historical Background,” 79–80.

C
HAPTER
2: T
HE
C
HOICEST
W
ONDERS

1
. On the
Ramillies
wreck:
http://sn.im/116pyp
;
www.submerged.co.uk/boltheadtobolttail.php
.

2
. “To the Author of London Magazine,”
London Magazine, or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligence
30 (1761): 199,
http://sn.im/11gqm0
.

3
. RS Misc. MSS 10/114. The East India Company was not a charitable organization. But every improvement in the art of navigation also improved its bottom line. The company's eagerness to ensure England had the best Venus transit measurements in the world bespeaks a recognition of some commercial potential in the science it was supporting.

4
. The position of the planets and the moon was calculated using Starry Night Pro.

5
. S. P. Rigaud,
Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of the Rev. James Bradley
(Oxford, 1832), 388–390.

6
. See
http://sn.im/12xzim
on the Byzantine role of white flags in British naval signaling.
http://sn.im/12y07n
;
Encyclopedia Britannica
(1797 ed.) on the white flag signaling “no hostile intention.”

7
.
A Universal Dictionary of the Marine
, “Rates,”
http://sn.im/126987
.

8
.
The New Bath Guide
(Bath: R. Cruttwell, 1789), 75–77,
http://sn.im/198256
.

9
. Henry Francis Whitfield,
Plymouth and Devonport: In Times of War and Peace
(Plymouth: E. Chapple, 1900), 157.

10
. RS Misc. MSS 10/128.

11
. RS Misc. MSS 10/130.

12
. RS Misc. MSS 10/129–131.

13
. RS Misc. MSS 10/129.

14
. James Pritchard,
Louis XV's Navy
(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987), 126.

15
. RS Misc. MSS 10/134.

16
. Table Bay descriptions:
http://sn.im/19p306
;
http://sn.im/19p37h
, 28ff.

17
. Re Ryk (Rijk) Tulbagh,
http://sn.im/19igqj
;
http://sn.im/19igs2
.

18
. Linnaeus, letter to Ryk Tulbagh, n.d., in
A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus and Other Naturalists
, ed. James Edward Smith (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1821), 2:570,
http://sn.im/19qd40
.

19
. Abraham Bogaert (1702), quoted in Leonard Thompson,
A History of South Africa
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 39.

20
. Kerry Ward,
Networks of Empire; Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

21
. Thompson,
History of South Africa
, 36–37; Hymen W.J. Picard,
Gentleman's Walk: The Romantic Story of Cape Town's Oldest Streets, Lanes, and Squares
(Cape Town: C. Struik, 1968), 255–128,
http://sn.im/1ao3p0
.

22
. Theodore MacKenzie, in “Mason and Dixon at the Cape,”
Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of South Africa
10, no. 100 (1951), finds the observatory's location between present-day St. Johns and Hope streets near St. Mary's Cathedral. Using period maps (e.g. Picard,
Gentleman's Walk
, frontispiece and p. 16), the 1761 equivalent of this location can readily be found.

23
. RS Misc. MSS 10/135.

24
. RS Misc. MSS 10/143, 144.

25
. Technically, the Venus transit observations ultimately yielded a number known as the solar parallax—one-half of the angular size of the earth, as seen from the sun. Because there are no stars visible in the daytime sky to measure the sun's position against, no one had ever been able to find out the solar parallax before Halley discovered the clever triangulation trick that enabled the Venus transit to yield the answer. The distance to the sun D can then be calculated from the equation D = R/π, where R is the earth's radius and π is the solar parallax. See the Technical Appendix in this book for more details.

26
. Using Starry Night Pro set to Cape Town on June 5, 1761, one sees Antares rising nearly directly to the east at 8:40
PM
. (Given the observatory's location, above, siting the mountains and landmarks above which it
would rise can readily be done in Google Earth.) Altair rises later, toward the northeast, at 11:40
PM
.

27
. Maskelyne, autobiographical notes, in Derek Howse,
Nevil Maskelyne: The Seaman's Astronomer
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 216.

28
. RS Misc. MSS 10/151.

29
. “The Description and Use of Hadley's Octant, Commonly Called Hadley's Quadrant,” in John Hamilton Moore,
The Practical Navigator
(London: B. Law & Son, 1791),
http://sn.im/1dfkn3
.

C
HAPTER
3: F
LYING
B
RIDGES

1
. Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal,
A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
(London: W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1783), 8:190.

2
. The archbishop, a notorious reactionary, had a few previous run-ins with Chappe. The archbishop hated the pope, whom he chastised for taking Communion sitting down. And he refused to believe that the earth orbited the sun. Chappe didn't sway the Russian prelate on the Copernican question. But as for the papal sacrilege, Chappe recalled, “I assured him the Pope was a cripple.” Chappe,
Journey to Siberia
, 290.

3
. William Tooke,
View of the Russian Empire During the Reign of Catherine the Second
(London: T.N. Longman & O. Rees, 1800), 2:45.