1 64 IVright &c. on an Universal Measure ; 



foreign academics for the languages which they were esta- 

 blished to improve. 



The first extract I have to offer is taken from the 88th 

 anr! 89th pages of Certain Errors in Navigation detected 

 and corrected, by Edic. IVright, a work ^to which that 

 science owes many of its best improvements. This book 

 was first printed in the year Ij 917, but "written riiiany 

 years before*." The second edition, in which I have also 

 read the following passage, appeared in 1610, and the third, 

 from wiiich I now transcribe it, in 1(]37. Of the vakie of 

 this now ahno.'t forgotten work, we mav judge from 

 HaUinfs recommendation of it, near a century after it was 

 firsi publislied, as " a book well dcserv'ing the perusal of 

 all sucli as design to use the seaf." Mr. IVrifrht is ehiefiy 

 known a» the inventor of the true construction of what is 

 called Mcrcator's, but which better deserves the name of 

 PtolemifSy chart J. His genius, however, was not con- 

 fined to mathematical speculations; for it appears, from a 

 I^atiti paper, preserved at Can)bridgc, and quoted by Dr. 

 Huf.to)!^, that li'ri'jiht was the first uiulertaker of the canal 

 called The New River, to which a great part of London 

 owes that abundant supply of water, which excites the ad- 

 miration of strangers. Eut the learned gentleman is mis» 

 taken in reckoning among Jf'right's works, the Haven- 

 finding Art, which he only translated from the Dutch. 

 This appears from the dedication oi' a copy now before me, 

 printed in 159!); from which we also learn that our coun- 

 tryman, Robert Nuriuari, had, some years before, disco- 

 vered the magnetic dip. In 1593 and the following year, 

 IVright, by observing the greatest and least heights of the 

 pole-star, with a brass quadrant of six feet radius,, deter- 

 mined the true Intitude of London to be 51" 3e', instead of 

 51° 45', which it had till tbcn bceiv reckoned. This was a 

 wonderful performance, at a time Avhen instruments were 

 so injperftct, and when the refraction had been but just de- 

 tected bv T/ji/io ; and was by no means fully ascertained ; 

 for that noble astronoiner was much mistaken with regard 

 to its quantity [|. On ibis occasion, I ho[>e to be excused 



* S»:c Dr. IVtttoii'! Mnthim. and Piiilos. D'ction. article Wright. 



t Sec tl't Mtyrllanru C'oi'/ia. vol. ii p. 20; also /A/f^'-'o/t'i System 

 of rl;c M.irhinritics, priiiteH in 1723, vol. i. p.. 2^4, 



t Stc t'ne jirt-frfc*; !ro th'.- Krior«; in Navignfi<m, and the " Flit of all the 

 World," at tlic tni of the 3d edition. 



§ DicKiliHtK , =irt. il'^iyOI. 

 . _ ij F <it HoiQ 111, OiicVK Posttxmti, nj. m. 7©.; Wolfi':, EUm.. Astron, 

 h% 34^- 3i®- ■^'•*<-'''-f 'list, of (Jtogr. p. lOy. 



. fo» 



