THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
25 
for his invention caused his transfer from Devonport to important 
and responsible duties in Liverpool, probably next to London the 
greatest shipping port in the world. I refer to Mr. J. T. Towson, 
who in the year 1847 "invented and composed a set of tables,"* 
the importance of which was so apparent that the publication of 
them was undertaken by the British Admiralty. He thus revived 
the idea of Great Circle Sailing, the principle of which was known 
to Yasco de Gama, the discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, but 
which was lost sight of, and fell into abeyance, on account of the 
difficulties of practically carrying it out on the part of the ordinary 
navigators. 
The Tables were so arranged that by simple inspection any 
ordinary navigator might avoid the difficulties and chances of error 
in personal calculations, and then by dint of persevering energy he 
succeeded in getting the English Admiralty to publish them in a 
readily available form. At that time there was an active emigration 
going on, principally from Plymouth, to New Zealand and Australia, 
and ships returning brought large supplies of corn and wool ; but 
the greater number of emigrants passed away from British rule to 
become citizens of the United States, because of the greater facility 
of access from the comparative shortness of the sea voyage. A 
good voyage to Sydney or Melbourne by sailing ships occupied 
four to five months — 112 to 140 days. 
In 1847 Mr. Towson had a conference with the owners and 
captain of an Australian liner, resulting in the determination 
to test the system. The most triumphant success attended the 
experiment. The first voyage accomplished the journey in about 
eighty days. In 1849 he introduced the "Composite" principle of 
sailing, and Captain Godfrey, in the Constance sailing ship, adopting 
the plan agreed on, accomplished the voyage in seventy-seven and 
afterwards in seventy-six days from Plymouth to Adelaide. It is 
hardly possible to describe the wonderful issues dependent upon 
this application of quiet thought worked out in the retirement of 
private life. It would take a very long paper fully to elucidate it ; 
but Mr. Towson was not a man to rest upon his laurels ; he was 
judiciously placed by the merchants of Liverpool in a position to 
mature his plans ; and so calling to his aid the then young Secretary 
of the Falmouth Polytechnic, another of our old members, Mr. 
Eundell, to superintend magnetic observations, by amalgamation of 
* " The Principles of Great Circle Sailing, 1855." By J. T. Towson. 
