The problem of longitude could be a lethal one.
-Simon Schaffer
Now, for the first time, the full story of attempts to solve the longitude problem - unravelling the lone genius myth popularised in film and literature - will be made freely available to everyone via Cambridge University Library’s Digital Library.
Launched yesterday (Thursday), the complete archive of the Board of Longitude, held by Cambridge University Library, and associated National Maritime Museum collections, will take their place alongside the works of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton at http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk
Treasures of the Longitude archive, available to view in high-resolution for the first time, include accounts of bitter rivalries, wild proposals and first encounters between Europeans and Pacific peoples. This includes logbooks of Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery, the naming of Australia and even a letter from Captain Bligh of HMS Bounty, who writes to apologise for the loss of a timekeeper after his ship was ‘pirated from my command’.
Watch a video and read the full story
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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