£80 Captain Hall on the propei' Method of laying 
path, and the dead reckoning path from day to day ; and it must 
be a very bad chronometer that will not give this within an in- 
considerable quantity. Thus a chronometer, which might give 
the longitude half a degree wrong at the end of an Indian voy- 
age, would serve very well to estimate the daily effect of the 
current off the Cape of Good Hope, within half a league of the 
truth* 
It is clear, that to a ship navigating without a chronometer 
or lunars, the above method is of no avail : even if frequent lu- 
nar observations be taken, still it is not possible to make the re- 
quired comparison from day to day without chances of great 
error ; whereas by means of a chronometer, (aided as it may very 
readily be by lunars), nothing is so simple. 
In this age of science, of general intelligence, and of liberali- 
ty in every thing connected with mercantile enterprise, it is in- 
deed most astonishing, that any ship should ever be permitted 
to set out on any voyage without a chronometer : and own- 
ers of ships, independently of the fearful responsibility which 
they incur by neglecting so important a precaution, may be 
assured that they most materially neglect their own interest 
by this species of economy ; for the safety of a ship is not only 
gi-eatly lessened, but the voyage is, in nine cases in ten, mate- 
rially protracted by the want of this easy and cheap addition to 
her equipment. Not only, therefore, the high obligation which 
they are under, to preserve, as far as in them lies, the lives of 
people embarked in their service, — ^but their own obvious pecu- 
niary advantage, calls upon them to despise this paltry saving, 
and never to suffer one of their ships to leave port without 
being provided with an instrument often of as much value as 
either sails or rudder. 
The class of navigators and ship-owners who, not many 
years ago, held scientific navigation in contempt, is now hap- 
pily much reduced. On such persons well established facts 
liave more influence than any general reasonings or assertions, 
and I beg leave to call their attention to the following circum- 
stances which actually fell under my own observation. 
In May 1815, in his Majesty’s sloop Victor, I arrived off the 
Cape of Good Hope, in company with a fleet of Indiamen, all 
of which were of course amply provided with excellent time- 
keepers. The Arniston, a large ship, and formerly an East 
