Dr. Bowditch, President of the American Academy. vil 
run with errors; and, at the instance of an enterprising bookseller, 
he began to revise it. Two revised editions were issued, but 
still under the name of the original compiler. In his subsequent 
revisions, however, Dr. Bowditch found it necessary to introduce 
so many improvements, and to give it so much the character of a 
new work, that he felt warranted in announcing it afterwards under 
his own name. As this was the first work published by him, and 
has been so extensively useful, — having in this country taken the 
place of every other work on navigation, —I may be allowed to 
mention some particulars connected with it. 
The British work in its original state was a compilation, made 
up partly from Robertson’s “ Elements of Navigation,” and partly 
from the well-known “ Requisite Tables” of Dr. Maskelyne, form- 
erly Astronomer Royal in the Observatory at Greenwich. _ It 
was constructed on a plan to contain such matter only as 
should be practically useful to navigators; and with that view Moore 
copied most of the rules of Robertson and the Tables of Mas- 
kelyne. This work, being of a moderate size and price, became 
popular in England and America; and in the former country had 
passed through thirteen editions at the time when Dr. Bowditch 
undertook his first revision of it; the publication of which was 
begun in the year 1798. In that edition none but the most material 
errors were the objects of revision; but various useful additions 
were made in different parts of the work.t 
The popularity of the original work, as Dr. Bowditch observes, 
arose rather from the principle of its construction than from its 
execution, which was extremely faulty; for Moore, besides omit- 
ting to correct the errors of the works from which he made his 
compilation, added many blunders of his own; and, among them, 
+ Note A, at the end. 
