lowed the example of Spain in
offering 30,000 florins for a similar discovery. But though some
efforts were made, nothing practical was done, principally through the
defective state of astronomical instruments. England succeeded Spain
and Holland as a naval power; and when Charles II. established the
Greenwich Observatory, it was made a special point that Flamsteed, the
Astronomer-Royal, should direct his best energies to the perfecting of
a method for finding the longitude by astronomical observations. But
though Flamsteed, together with Halley and Newton, made some progress,
they were prevented from obtaining ultimate success by the want of
efficient chronometers and the defective nature of astronomical
instruments.

Nothing was done until the reign of Queen Anne, when a petition was
presented to the Legislature on the 25th of May, 1714, by "several
captains of Her Majesty's ships, merchants in London, and commanders of
merchantmen, in behalf of themselves, and of all others concerned in
the navigation of Great Britain," setting forth the importance of the
accurate discovery of the longitude, and the inconvenience and danger
to which ships were subjected from the want of some suitable method of
discovering it. The petition was referred to a committee, which took
evidence on the subject. It appears that Sir Isaac Newton, with his
extraordinary sagacity, hit the mark in his report. "One is," he said,
"by a watch to keep time exactly; but, by reason of the motion of a
ship, and the variation of heat and cold, wet and dry, and the
difference of gravity in different latitudes, such a watch hath not yet
been made."

An Act was however passed in the Session of 1714, offering a very large
public reward to inventors: 10,000L. to any one who should discover a
method of determining the longitude to one degree of a great circle, or
60 geographical miles; 15,000L. if it determined the same to two-thirds
of that distance, or 40 geographical miles; and 20,000L. if it
determined the same to one-half of the same distance, or 30
geographical miles. Commissioners were appointed by the same Act, who
were instructed that "one moiety or half part of such reward shall be
due and paid when the said commissioners, or the major part of them, do
agree that any such method extends to the security of ships within 80
geographical miles of the shore, which are places of the greatest
danger; and the other moiety or half part when a ship, by