'Journal of a voyage from England to St Helena, Ship Prince Henry, East India Man, Charles Haggis, Commander'


A record of the observations and calculations carried out by the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne on his voyage to the island of St. Helena. It is a mix of rough and neat observations from the journey and opens with tightly-packed calculations and notes to himself. This is followed by neatly set-out tables of daily entries which run from 21 January to 6 April 1761 (when the ship arrived in St. Helena), comparing longitude by his observations with the dead reckoning and including a record of the weather at the time of each observation. Later pages include careful working out, with diagrams of problems on the elliptical orbit of heavenly bodies, and of the scholium. The journals kept by the Captain Charles Haggis and first mate William Papworth are also included.