Vill Mr. Pickering’s Eulogy on 
one that proved fatal to several vessels ; in the Tables of the Sun’s 
Declination, the year 1800 was set down by him as a J/eap year, 
which made an error of twenty-three miles in some of the num- 
bers ; and this was the cause of several vessels being wholly lost, 
and of others being brought into great danger. Dr. Bowditch justly 
characterizes this as “a very criminal inattention” in the compiler 
of a work, upon whose accuracy the lives and safety of thousands 
of navigators depended.* 
In the year 1802 Dr. Bowditch published the “ Practical Navi- 
gator” under his own name; this edition was originally to have 
been the third American one of Moore’s work. But, as Dr. Bow- 
ditch observes in his Preface to it, on a careful examination, it was 
found so erroneous in the Tables, and so faulty in the arrangement, 
that he “ concluded to take up the subject anew,” and, without being 
confined to Moore’s work, to have recourse to those authors, whose 
writings would afford the best materials for the-purpose; to intro- 
duce additions and improvements, and to ensure accuracy in the 
Tables by actually going through all the calculations necessary 
to a complete examination of them.t 
Notwithstanding the minute attention thus bestowed upon all 
the details of this work, Dr. Bowditch modestly says; “The au- 
thor had once flattered himself that the Tables of this collection 
which did not depend on observations would be absolutely correct ; 
but in the course of his calculations he has accidentally discovered 
several errors in two of the most correct works of the kind ex- 
tant, viz. Taylor’s and Hutton’s Logarithms, notwithstanding the 
great care taken by those able mathematicians in examining and 
correcting them; he, therefore, does not absolutely assert, that 
these Tables are entirely correct, but feels conscious, that no 
pains have been spared to make them so.” 
* Preface to the Practical Navigator. t Note B, at the end. 
