Old-Time
Nautical Instruments
BY
JOHN ROBINSON
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
1921
ONE HUNDRED COPIES
DEPRINTED FROM
Old-Time New England
APRIL, 1921
SHIP GRAND TURK, 1786
OLD-TIME NAUTICAL INSTRUMENTS
By John Robinson
Curator of the Marine Room, Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.
WHAT sort of instruments didthe Colonial ship-masters carry?What did they have onthe Mayflower? What did Columbususe? And, to come down to comparativelyrecent times, what instrumentswere available and were actuallyused on the vessels during thecommercial-marine activities followingthe American Revolution and up to thetime of the appearance of steamships?
These questions are often asked,not only by landsmen but by seafaringmen as well. The ship-master of todayuses instruments so different fromthose of Colonial times, or even of theearlier years of the nineteenth century,that unless he has a penchantfor research he knows nothing aboutthe earlier ones and certainly not howto use them if by chance they cometo his notice. Holding in his hand aDavis quadrant, the skilful navigatorof Salem’s last square-rigger, the shipMindoro, which passed out of servicein 1897, said to the writer:—“I haveno idea how to use it and I do notbelieve that there is a ship-master sailingout of Boston today who does.”The Davis quadrant was in commonuse all through the eighteenth centuryand probably later. It is figured andexplained in a book on navigation in1796. There are two in the PeabodyMuseum collection in Salem, datedrespectively, 1768 and 1773, and anundated one in the collection is certainlyolder. Only the student of thehistory of navigation can explain themor their uses. The English navigator,John Davis, the inventor of this quadrant,in his “Seaman’s Secrets”, printedin 1594, gives a list of instrumentswhich should be taken on ships, but itis to be feared few vessels carried themall or that owners were able to providethem. It included,—sea-compass,cross-staff, chart, quadrant, astrolabe,instrument to test compass variation,horizontal plane sphere, and paradoxicalcompass.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY SPANISH ASTROLABE
Full size. From Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
UNIVERSAL RING-DIAL
Diameter 3-1/2 inches. Owned by Mr. Parker Kemble.