At the same time there was interest in the other aspects of the 

 mathematical sciences. As early as 1743, for instance, a Harvard 

 mathematician named Nathan Prince advertised in Boston that 

 if he were given "suitable Encouragement" he would establish a 

 school to teach "Geography and Astronomy, With the Use of the 

 Globes, and the several kinds of Projecting the Sphere" among 

 other things.^ A decade later, Theophilus Grew, professor in the 

 academy at Philadelphia which has become the University of Penn- 

 sylvania, published a treatise on globes, with the title: 



The Description and Use of the Globes, Celestial and Terrestrial; With 

 Variety for Examples for the Learner's Exercises: Intended for the Use of 

 Such Persons as would attain to the Knowledge of those Instruments; But 

 Chiefly designed for the Instruction of the young Gentlemen at the Academy in 

 Philadelphia. To which is added Rules for working all the Cases in Plain 

 and Spherical Triangles without a Scheme. By Theophilus Grew, Mathe- 

 matical Professor. Germantown, Printed by Christopher Sower, 1753.^ 



Thus, the need for practical mathematical instruments for the 

 surveyor and navigator became critical in proportion to the need 

 for men to make and use them, and it is not surprising to discover 

 that the majority of the instruments produced and advertised by 

 early American makers were for surveying, with nautical instru- 

 ments in second place. Generally, the surveyors were not profes- 

 sionals; they were farmers, tradesmen, or craftsmen with a sound 

 knowledge of basic arithmetic and occasionally with some advanced 

 study of the subject as taught in the evening schools. The sur- 

 veying of provincial and intercolonial boundaries required greater 

 skill, however, as well as a knowledge of astronomy, and this work 

 was relegated to the scientific men of the period. 



As the increasing preoccupation with subdivision of land and with 

 surveying led to a greater demand for suitable instruments, it was 

 the skilled craftsmen of the community, such as the clockmaker 

 and the silversmith, that were called upon to produce them. 

 Superb examples also were produced by the advanced scientific 

 men, or "mathematical practitioners," of the period. 



Colonial Training in Instrument Making 



One may well ask, where did these native craftsmen acquire the 

 knowledge that enabled them to produce so skillfully the accurate 



^ Brooke Hindle, The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America 1735-1789 

 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), pp. 337-338. 



' LeRoy E. Kimball, "James Wilson of Vermont, America's First Globe 

 Maker," Proceedings oj the American Antiquarian Society (April 1938), p. 31. 



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