Life and Character of Nathaniel Bowditch. 1 1 



year, it will be found to be 7° 33', making a difference of twenty- 

 three miles. Mr. Waters fortunately had a Nautical Almanac on 

 board, and likewise a copy of Pike's Arithmetic, which explained 

 the reason lohy the year 1800 was not leap year. In consequence 

 of this he escaped the dangers to which other vessels in the 

 same latitude were subjected ; for he afterwards read in the 

 newspapers of several ships that were wrecked solely by reason 

 of that blunder. It was, indeed, quite time for Hamilton Moore 

 to be laid up, high and dry, on the shelf 



Before publishing his own work, Mr. Bowditch had prepared 

 for Mr. Blunt two corrected editions of Moore's book, in which 

 he had actually discovered and corrected eight thousand errors in 

 the nautical tables, as he himself testifies in the preface to the 

 last stereotype edition. 



Such was the germ of " The New American Practical Naviga- 

 tor," the first edition of which he issued in the year 1800, at the 

 age of twenty -seven ; a work abounding with the actual results of 

 his own experience, and containing simpler and more expeditious 

 formulas for working the nautical problems. This work has been 

 of immense service to the nautical and commercial interests of 

 this country. Had Dr. Bowditch never done any thing else, he 

 would still, by this single act, have conferred a lasting obligation 

 upon his native land; and the national legislature might well 

 acknowledge it by erecting a monument to his memory. Just 

 consider the simple fact, that every vessel that sails from the 

 ports of the United States, from Eastport to New Orleans, is nav- 

 igated by the rules and tables of his book. And this has been 

 the case nearly ever since its publication, thirty-eight years ago. 

 Notwithstanding the competition of other English and American 

 works on the subject, " The Practical Navigator" has never been 

 superseded. It has kept pace with the progress of nautical sci- 

 ence, and incorporated all its successive discoveries and results ; 

 and the last edition, published withia the last year, contains new 

 tables and other improvements, which will probably secure its 

 undivided use by our seamen for years to come. 



In compiling " The Navigator," he was essentially aided by 

 a series of manuscript journals, preserved in the East India Mu- 

 seum, at Salem. It is one of the regulations of the East India 

 Marine Society, to whom that splendid collection belongs, that 

 each member shall keep a journal of every thing remarkable 



