/ OHN HARRISON. 1 6 1 



more, on sucn occasions, for I nevei will attempt such an 

 affair again whilst I Hve." 



John Harrison. 



Jolin Harrison, the inventor of the time-keeper which pro- 

 cured him the reward of the Board of Longitude, was the son 

 of a carpenter in Yorkshire, and assisted his father in the 

 business imtil he was twenty years of age. Occasionally, 

 however, he was employed in measuring land, and mending 

 clocks and watches. He was from his childhood attached to 

 any wheel machinery ; and when he lay ill in his sixth year, he 

 had a watch placed open upon his pillow, that he might amuse 

 himself by contemplating the movement. Though his oppor- 

 tunities of acquiring knowledge were very few, he eagerly 

 improved every incident for information. He frequently passed 

 whole nights in drawing or wnriting; and he always acknowledged 

 his obligations to a neighbouring clergyman for lending him a 

 manuscript copy of Professor Sanderson's Lectures which he 

 carefully and neatly transcribed, with all the diagrams. 



On the reward being offered, in the 14th of Queen Anne, 

 for discovering the longitude, Harrison's attention was drawn 

 to the subject, and he began to consider how he could alter a 

 clock, which he had previously made, so that it might not be 

 subject to any irregularities, occasioned by the difference of 

 climates and the motions of a ship. These difficulties he 

 surmounted ; and his clock having answered his expectations 

 in a trial, attended with very bad weather upon the river 

 Humber, he was advised to carry it to London, in order to 

 apply for the parliamentary reward. He first showed it to 

 several members of the Royal Society, who gave him a certifi- 

 cate that his machine for measuring time promised a very 



