Ixvi Votes. 
accurate table, and to induce him to exercise a spirit of candor in judging of 
errors that may possibly exist in this part of the work.” 
After this full denial of the charges brought against the accuracy of the 
American Practical Navigator, it was to have been expected, that Dr. Mackay 
would have the candor to make some acknowledgment on the subject. He, 
however, suffered his remarks to be repeated, in the second edition of his 
work, which was not published till three years after Dr. Bowditch denied the 
truth of his charges. 
I may here add, upon the authority of the publisher of Dr. Bowditch’s 
Navigator, that American shipmasters are continually applied to, in foreign 
countries, to sell their copies of the work, and that ‘‘foreign mariners ar- 
riving in the United States, of every nation, whether speaking the language or 
not, always want Bowditch, as it is commonly called ; and wherever it has 
? and no other works on Navigation 
been used, it has always been preferred ; ’ 
“are equal to Bowditch in extent of utility, accuracy, and simplicity.”” A late 
English Journal, of established reputation, states, that Bowditch’s Practical 
Navigator ‘‘goes, both in American and British craft, over every sea of the 
globe, and is probably the best work of the sort ever published.” — London 
Atheneum, of April 28th, 1838. 
NOTE D. p. x. 
Or the minor improvements one may be here mentioned, which, though 
apparently trifling, is practically of considerable value to those who are in the 
daily habit of using the Tables, and whose calculations, at sea, must some- 
times be prompt as well as accurate ; and I mention this, not so much for its 
own importance, independently of other considerations, as to show the un- 
wearied pains taken by Dr. Bowditch to render every possible facility in 
matters of practical use. The little improvement I allude to is, that, instead 
of the English and American numerals of the present fashion, (in which the 
figures are all of the same length, and do not rise above or fall below the line 
in any instance,) he adopted figures of the older model, which is still followed 
by the French, and in which the eye is enabled to distinguish, at a glance, 
those figures that bear some resemblance to each other and are apt to be 
confounded, in the haste of taking them from the modern Tables. 
