of the iate Dr. Maskelyne. v | 
avainst, according to their ideas or connections. M. de 
Fleaurin, intimate with F. Bertoud, and devoted to the 
cause of watches, perhaps forgot on this occasion his usual 
moderation. It was a great dispute between two useful 
methods calculated to give assistance to each other. Dr. 
Maskelyne found watches could not be sufficiently de- 
pended on. Flarrison said, not without some reason, they 
were within the limits prescribed by the act of parliament. 
He therefore demanded the whole reward; which was’ 
‘granted him afterwards, but of which at that time he ob- 
tained only half. Pleading his cause he attacked the astro- 
nomical methods, and took advantage of La Caille’s re- 
marks, when extolling the method of distances he yet 
owned the errors to which it was subject. Maskelyne 
proved, by his experience, that the errors would be less 
with better instruments than those of La Caille, and such 
they then began to make in London. It is probable, that 
in this struggle between mechanics and astronomy each 
party might be carried a little too far. The watches did 
all that was required of them by the act of 1714, and if at 
that time Harrison had presented his machine, he would‘ 
doubtless, without difficulty, have obtained the whole re- 
ward. But fifty years afterwards, when instruments had 
been improved, and ihe tables of the moon had received 
unhoped-for improvements, was it not excusable to require 
something more? | Watches, by the facility they offered, 
were likely to please seamen, enemies to long calculations 5 
but their exactness could not be depended on, except in 
short voyages; in long voyages the method of distances 
had an incontestable advantage: thus Dr. Maskelyne ap- 
pears to us to have shown as much justice as discernment, 
in awarding one half of the sum to Harrison for bis watch 5 
and the other half to the second Lunar Tables, which Mayer 
had before his death sent to the Board of Longitude in 
London. The English nation afterwards yielded as much 
to motives of generosity as of justice, in completing the re- 
ward to Harrison to which he had a right when the literal 
meaning of the act of parliament is considered. Dr. 
Maskelyne, who was then endeavouring to get the plan of 
the Nautical Almanac adopted, had reason to fear that the 
nation, after having magnificently rewarded one fine in- 
vention, might be more indifferent and ceconomical with 
respect to a yet more useful work, It was his duty to 
plead the cause of science, and he acquitted himself ho- 
nourably: both parties gained their cause. Dr. Maskelyne 
established that plan which La Caille could not get adopted 
A4 in 
