The English Quadrant in Europe: Instruments and the Growth of Consensus in Practical Astronomy

Howse D. , “The Greenwich list of observatories: A world list of astronomical observatories, instruments and clocks, 1670–1850”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xvii (1986), part 4.

The question of the reason for the widespread acceptance of the meridian observation programme was raised in Dewhirst D. W. , “Meridian astronomy in the private and university observatories of the United Kingdom: Rise and fall”, Vistas in astronomy, xxviii (1985), 147–58.

Herschel J. F. W. , “An address delivered at a special general meeting of the Astronomical Society of London”, Memoirs of the [Royal] Astronomical Society, iii (1829), 123–36, p. 124.

Ibid., 124–5.

Schaffer S. , “Herschel in Bedlam: Natural history and stellar astronomy”, The British journal for the history of science, xiii (1980), 211–39.

Herschel , op. cit., 125.

Bennett J. A. , Church, state and astronomy in Ireland: 200 years of Armagh Observatory (Armagh and Belfast, 1990), 109–10.

Bennett J. A. , The divided circle: A history of instruments for astronomy, navigation and surveying (Oxford, 1987), 88–91, 113–19; Chapman A. , Dividing the circle: The development of critical angular measurement in astronomy 1500–1850 (Chichester, 1990), 66–71.

Howse D. , Greenwich Observatory, iii: The buildings and instruments (London, 1975), 21–24.

Smith R. , A compleat system of opticks (Cambridge, 1738), ii, 321–7; quotation from p. 332.

Ibid., 321–7. Lalande's attribution to Hooke can apply, at most, to the telescope ( Howse , op. cit. (ref. 9), 32–34).

Howse , op. cit. (ref. 9), 126–30.

Ibid., 79–81; Smith , op. cit. (ref. 10), ii, 350–4.

Howse , op. cit. (ref. 9), 60–64; Hoskin Michael , Stellar astronomy: Historical studies (Chalfont St Giles, Bucks, 1982), 31–35.

Bradley J. , “A letter to the Rt. Hon. George, Earl of Macclesfield, concerning an apparent motion in some of the fixed stars”, Philosophical transactions, xlv (1748), 1–43, p. 6.

Gunther R. T. , Early science in Oxford (Oxford, 1920–67), ii, 311311, 319–25, 336, 394–6.

Bion N. , The construction and principal uses of mathematical instruments, trans. and ed. by Stone E. (London, 1758), 278.

Ibid., Supplement, Advertisement.

Ibid. The mural quadrant is described at pp. 275–8.

Bird J. , The method of dividing astronomical instruments (London, 1767); idem, The method of constructing mural quadrants (London, 1768).

Bird , The method of constructing mural quadrants, 7.

Long J. , Astronomy, in five books (Cambridge, 1764), ii, 723.

de Lalande J. J. Le F. , Astronomie (Paris, 1764), ii, 854–6.

de Maupertuis P. L. M. , La figure de la terre (Paris, 1738), 38–39, 83–84, 94–100; The figure of the Earth (London, 1738), 65–67, 109, 123–9.

Le Monnier P. C. , Histoire céleste (Paris, 1741), “Discours Préliminaire”, p. iii.

Ibid., pp. lxxv–lxxxvii.

Le Monnier P. C. , Description et usage des principaux instruments d'astronomie (Paris, 1774), 5, 12, 33.

Ibid., 2. This opinion did not become generally accepted.

Ibid., 34.

Howse , op. cit. (ref. 1), 28.

Monnier Le , op. cit. (ref. 27), 39.

Ibid., 6 and passim; Howse , op. cit. (ref. 1), 24–26.

Lalande , op. cit. (ref. 23), 854–6.

Ibid., 877–88.

de Lalande J. J. Le F. , Histoire céleste française (Paris, 1801), pp. ii, viii.

Ibid., p. iii.

Howse , op. cit. (ref. 1), 24, 26, 29.

Tobias Mayer's Opera inedita , ed. by Forbes E. G. (London and Basingstoke, 1971), especially pp. 62–70; Forbes E. G. “Tobias Mayer (1723–62): A case of forgotten genius”, The British journal for the history of science, v (1970–71), 1–20; The unpublished writings of Tobias Mayer, i: Astronomy and geography , ed. by Forbes E. G. (Göttingen, 1972); Forbes E. G. , The birth of navigational science (London, 1974); Mayer T. , Astronomical observations made at Göttingen, from 1756 to 1761 (London, 1826); Baily F. , “Mayer's Catalogue of Stars corrected and enlarged”, Memoirs of the [Royal] Astronomical Society, iv (1831), 391–445.

Howse , op. cit. (ref. 1).

Baily F. , “On the construction and use of some new tables for determining the apparent places of nearly 3000 principal fixed stars”, Memoirs of the [Royal] Astronomical Society, ii (1826), Appendix; Baily F. , The catalogue of stars of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (London, 1845).

Shapin S. and Schaffer S. , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), chap. 6.