SQUIRE, Jane (?1671-1743). A Proposal to determine our Longitude , London: printed for the author and sold by S. Cope and by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1743. 8° (194 x 121mm). Half title, one folding table. (Contents misbound before postcript.) Contemporary calf, single fillet border, circular emblem depicting characters of longitude on sides, morocco lettering-piece. A crisp copy of the second edition, "published in English only" (title). The first edition was published in 1742 with a parallel text in English and French. In July 1714 a reward was offered to anyone who could devise a 'practicable method of calculating longitude at sea'. The method had to be tested on a voyage to the West Indies and on arrival had to give the longitude of the port within a specified degree of accuracy. Jane Squire was the only woman to offer a solution to the problem of longitude. Her proposal was to divide the sky into over a million numbered spaces, which she named cloves. Navigators would have to memorise these cloves, recognise the clove directly above their current position and then use an 'astral' watch (set to the movement of the stars), to calculate their longitude from Squire's prime meridian, which ran through the manger in Bethlehem. Dawson 6355.
SQUIRE, Jane (?1671-1743). A Proposal to determine our Longitude , London: printed for the author and sold by S. Cope and by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1743. 8° (194 x 121mm). Half title, one folding table. (Contents misbound before postcript.) Contemporary calf, single fillet border, circular emblem depicting characters of longitude on sides, morocco lettering-piece. A crisp copy of the second edition, "published in English only" (title). The first edition was published in 1742 with a parallel text in English and French. In July 1714 a reward was offered to anyone who could devise a 'practicable method of calculating longitude at sea'. The method had to be tested on a voyage to the West Indies and on arrival had to give the longitude of the port within a specified degree of accuracy. Jane Squire was the only woman to offer a solution to the problem of longitude. Her proposal was to divide the sky into over a million numbered spaces, which she named cloves. Navigators would have to memorise these cloves, recognise the clove directly above their current position and then use an 'astral' watch (set to the movement of the stars), to calculate their longitude from Squire's prime meridian, which ran through the manger in Bethlehem. Dawson 6355.
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