S2 Mechankat Philosophy. [Chap. L 



ratiim among astronomers and navigators. la 

 1714, an association was fonned in Great Britain, 

 under the denomination of the Board of Longitude, 

 aided by the authority and patronage of the go- 

 vernment. The exertions and the Hberahty of this 

 body have done honour to their age and country, 

 and in a very considerable degree "attained their im- 

 portant object. The most approved mode of as- 

 certaining the longitude now in use, viz. by ob- 

 serving the distance of the momi from the sun, or 

 from certain stars, though repeated!}^ suggested, 

 was never reduced to practice till the eighteenth 

 century. In promoting this object Dr. Halley 

 early distinguished himself. To him succeeded 

 several others, who formed Lunar Tables , with a 

 view to facilitate the necessary calculations; but 

 among these, none laboured with so much success 

 as professor Mayer*, of Gottingen, whose tables 

 were brought to such a degree of accuracy -as to be 

 thought worthy of a large premium from the Board 

 of Longitude before mentioned. Mayer's tables 

 were afterwards improved by Mr. Charles Mason, 

 of England, who reached a still greater degree of 

 precision in his calculations. And finally, to the 

 lev. Dr. Maskelyne, the present Astronomer Royal^ 



to be false ; that expectations as sanguine have been often blast- 

 ed J and that modern discoveries in science, and tlie observations 

 of trax'cllers, instead of discrediting the sacred history, have uni- 

 formly tended to illustrate and confirm it. See Additional 

 Notes— (R). 



* Tobias Mayer, the celebrated astronomer, v/as born in Ger- 

 many in the year 1723, and died in 1762. For his Astronomical 

 tables and Precepts, the English Board of Longitude gave his 

 widow 3000/. sterhng. 



