Agents for Nautical Publications

Abstract

Over the past several years. and due in large measure to my association with fellow members of the Society for the History of Discoveries, I have come to realize that modern scholars concerned with the early development of astronomical navigation, surveying, cartography, naval architecture, and naval ordnance are well advised to begin with today's knowledge and practices and work backward in time. With this precept in mind, and limiting myself in general to astronomical navigation, I have taken advantage of trips abroad during the summers of 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1970 to seek out at least one principal and well-stocked nautical store in at least one port city of each of a dozen countries. These countries fall within the cultural zone of Western Europe and employ languages in which I have at least a modicum of competence. (Which is an indirect way of admitting that I do not know Chinese, Japanese, or Russian.) The stores themselves are either official government agencies or official depositories of government nautical publications including charts, in other words, the very nautical (and occasionally air) almanacs, volumes of sight reduction and other navigational tables,1 standard manuals of navigation, and charts and plotting sheets which the scholar needs to have at hand in order to understand the end-product of the evolution which interests him. These stores also normally offer for sale the standard chronometers, sextants, and plotting tools employed by the respective merchant marines. I have found that the managers and employees of these houses constitute a grand international fellowship, and invariably they know the English language. They are hospitable, patient, helpful, and interested in scholarly research. With the thought that they may be of service to readers of Terrae In cognitae, I pass along the names and addresses of the firms or agencies with which they are associated.