1918 AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR Nathaniel Bowditch MARINE Maritime OCEAN Sea

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AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR: AN EPITOME OF NAVIGATION AND NAUTICAL ASTRONOMYOriginally by Nathaniel BowditchFREE SHIPPING with delivery confirmation on all domestic purchases!Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918.Heavy oversized hardcover / 949 pp / Tables, charts / Signed by owner, New Bedford, Massachusetts; Henry Costa / Boards are poor; cracked hinges; heavily worn /Huge classic marine reference from Nathaniel Bowditch.We ship worldwide! Please see all pictures and visit our eBay store and other eBay auctions!The American Practical Navigator (colloquially often referred to as Bowditch ), originally written by Nathaniel Bowditch , is an encyclopedia of navigation . It serves as a valuable handbook on oceanography and meteorology , and contains useful tables and a maritime glossary. In 1867 the copyright and plates were bought by the Hydrographic Office of the United States Navy , and as a U.S. Government publication, it is now available free online. It is considered one of America's nautical institutions. [ citation needed ]History [ edit ]The most popular navigational text of the late 18th century was The New Practical Navigator by John Hamilton Moore of the Royal Navy , first published in 1772.To have exact tables to work from, Bowditch recomputed all of Moore's tables, and rearranged and expanded the work. He contacted the US publisher of the work, Edmund March Blunt , who asked him to correct and revise the third edition on his fifth voyage. The task was so extensive that Bowditch decided to write his own book, and to "put down in the book nothing I can't teach the crew." On that trip, it is said that every man of the crew of 12, including the ship's cook, became competent to take and calculate lunar observations and to plot the correct position of the ship. The New Practical Navigator was published in 1799, followed by a second edition in 1800.By 1802, when Blunt was ready to publish a third edition, Nathaniel Bowditch and others had corrected so many errors in Moore's work that Blunt decided to publish it as the first edition of a new work, The New American Practical Navigator . The current edition of the American Practical Navigator traces its pedigree to that 1802 edition. Edmund M. Blunt continued to publish the book until 1833; upon his retirement, his sons, Edmund and George, assumed publication. The elder Blunt died in 1862; his son Edmund followed in 1866. The next year, 1867, George Blunt sold the copyright to the government for $25,000. The government has published Bowditch ever since. George Blunt died in 1878.Nathaniel Bowditch continued to correct and revise the book until his death in 1838. Upon his death, the editorial responsibility for The New American Practical Navigator passed to his son, J. Ingersoll Bowditch . Very few significant changes were made under him. Editions from 1837 through 1880 are nearly identical in content. Ingersoll Bowditch continued editing the Navigator until George Blunt sold the copyright to the government. He outlived all of the principals involved in publishing and editing the Navigator , dying in 1889.The U.S. government has published some 52 editions since acquiring the copyright to the book that has come to be known simply by its original author's name, "Bowditch". Since the government began production, the book has been known by its year of publishing, instead of by the edition number. After the first major revision, a total overhaul of the book's content completed in 1880 under the direction of Commander Philip H. Cooper , USN, the name was changed to American Practical Navigator . Much of Bowditch's original content, including his methods for clearing lunar distance observations, were dropped in 1880 (though a new method for clearing lunars remained in an appendix until the early 20th century). After numerous incremental revisions and printings in the period from 1914 to 1944, Bowditch was extensively revised between 1946 and 1958.Nathaniel BowditchThe present... read more

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