and often delicate mathematical instruments? There were a 

 number of possible sources for this knowledge. The first source 

 lies in England, where some of these craftsmen could have studied 

 or served apprenticeships. After completing their apprenticeship 

 with English mathematical practitioners, they may have immi- 

 grated to the Colonies and taught the craft to others. This seems 

 to be entirely plausible, and was probably true, for example, of 

 Thomas Harland the clockmaker, Anthony Lamb, and perhaps 

 several others. However, these were the exceptions instead of the 

 rule, since a biographical study of the instrument makers in general 

 reveals that they were for the most part native to America. It is 

 not likely that the one or two isolated practitioners that had been 

 trained in England could have taught so many others who worked 

 in the same epoch. 



Another source for this knowledge of instrument making was 

 probably the reference works on the subject that had been pub- 

 lished in England and in France. As an example, Nicolas Bion's 

 Traite de la Construction et des Principaux Usages des Instruments 

 de Mathematique ^ which had been first published in 1686, was 

 translated into English by Edmund Stone in 1723, and went into 

 several English editions. Copies of this work in English undoubt- 

 edly found their way to America soon after publication. Other 

 popular works were Aaron Rathbone's The Surveyor^ which 

 appeared in London in 1616 (see fig. 2); William Leybourn's The 

 Compleat Surveyor, in 1653 ; and George Atwell's Faithfull Survey our, 

 in 1662. Other works popular in the Colonies were R. Norwood's 

 Epitome, or The Doctrine of Triangles (London, 1659) and J. Love's 

 Geodasia, or the Art of Surveying (London, 1688). 



These works undoubtedly inspired similar publications in Amer- 

 ica, for many books on surveying and navigation appeared there 

 before the beginning of the 19th century. Chief among them 

 were S. Moore's An Accurate System of Surveying (Litchfield, Conn., 

 1796), Z. Jess's A Compendious System of Practical Surveying 

 (Wilmington, 1799), Abel Flint's Surveying (Hartford, 1804), and 

 J. Day's Principles of Navigation and Surveying (New Haven, 1817). 



The published works were unquestionably responsible for much 

 of the training in the making of mathematical instruments in 

 America, although no documentary evidence has yet been re- 

 covered to prove it. 



Another important influence on early American instrument- 

 making which must be noted was that of the clockmaker as an 

 artisan. A comprehensive study of surviving instruments and 



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