because of their friction-free design features. They embody Harrison’s pioneering work to eliminate friction through the careful selection and assembly of components. But even Harrison was unable to miniaturize the antifriction wheels and the caged roller bearings for the construction of H-4. As a result, he was forced to lubricate the watch.
The messy oil used for horological lubrication mandates scheduled maintenance (and this is as true today as it was in Harrison’s time). As it seeps about the works, the oil changes viscosity and acidity, until it no longer lubricates but merely loiters in interior recesses, threatening to sabotage the machinery. To keep H-4 running, therefore, caretakers would have to clean it regularly, approximately once every three years, which would require the complete dismantling of all parts—and incur risk that some of the parts, no matter how carefully held with tweezers and awe, would be damaged.
Then, too, moving parts subjected to constant friction eventually wear out, even if they are kept lubricated, and then have to be replaced. Estimating the pace of this natural process of attrition, curators suppose that within three or four centuries, H-4 would become a very different object from the one Harrison bequeathed to us three centuries ago. In its present state of suspended animation, however, H-4 may look forward to a well-preserved life of undetermined longevity. It is expected to endure for hundreds of years, if not thousands—a future befitting the timepiece described as the Mona Lisa or The Night Watch of horology.
11.
Trial by Fire and
Water
Two lunar months are past, and more,
Since of these heroes half a score
Set out to try their strength and skill,
And fairly start for Flamsteed-Hill . . .
But take care, Rev. M-sk-l-n,
Thou scientific harlequin,
Nor think, by jockeying, to win . . .
For the great donor of the prize
Is just, as Jove who rules the skies.
—“C.P.” “Greenwich Hoy!” or “The Astronomical Racers”
A story that hails a hero must also hiss at a villain—in this case, the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, remembered by history as “the seaman’s astronomer.”
In all fairness, Maskelyne is more an antihero than a villain, probably more hardheaded than hardhearted. But John Harrison hated him with a passion, and with good reason. The tension between these two men turned the last stretch of the quest for the longitude prize into a pitched battle.
Maskelyne took up, then embraced, then came to personify the lunar distance method. The man and the method melded easily, for Maskelyne, who put off marrying until he was fifty-two, enslaved himself to accurate observation and careful calculation. He kept records of everything, from astronomical positions to events in his personal life (including each expenditure, large or small, over the course of four-score years), and noted them all with the same detached matter-of-factness. He even wrote his own autobiography in the third person: “Dr. M.,” this surviving handwritten volume begins, “is the last male heir of an ancient family long settled at Purton in the County of Wilts.” On subsequent pages, Maskelyne refers to himself alternately as “he” and “Our Astronomer”— even before his main character becomes astronomer royal in 1765.
The fourth in a long line of Nevils, Maskelyne was born on October 5, 1732. This made him about forty years younger than John Harrison, although he seemed never to have been young . Described by a biographer early on as “rather a swot” and “a bit of a prig,” he threw himself into the study of astronomy and optics with every intention of becoming an important scientist. Family letters refer to his older brothers, William and Edmund, as “Billy” and “Mun,” and call his younger sister, Margaret, “Peggy,” but Nevil was always and only Nevil.
Unlike John Harrison, who had no formal education, Nevil Maskelyne attended Westminster School and Cambridge
The messy oil used for horological lubrication mandates scheduled maintenance (and this is as true today as it was in Harrison’s time). As it seeps about the works, the oil changes viscosity and acidity, until it no longer lubricates but merely loiters in interior recesses, threatening to sabotage the machinery. To keep H-4 running, therefore, caretakers would have to clean it regularly, approximately once every three years, which would require the complete dismantling of all parts—and incur risk that some of the parts, no matter how carefully held with tweezers and awe, would be damaged.
Then, too, moving parts subjected to constant friction eventually wear out, even if they are kept lubricated, and then have to be replaced. Estimating the pace of this natural process of attrition, curators suppose that within three or four centuries, H-4 would become a very different object from the one Harrison bequeathed to us three centuries ago. In its present state of suspended animation, however, H-4 may look forward to a well-preserved life of undetermined longevity. It is expected to endure for hundreds of years, if not thousands—a future befitting the timepiece described as the Mona Lisa or The Night Watch of horology.
11.
Trial by Fire and
Water
Two lunar months are past, and more,
Since of these heroes half a score
Set out to try their strength and skill,
And fairly start for Flamsteed-Hill . . .
But take care, Rev. M-sk-l-n,
Thou scientific harlequin,
Nor think, by jockeying, to win . . .
For the great donor of the prize
Is just, as Jove who rules the skies.
—“C.P.” “Greenwich Hoy!” or “The Astronomical Racers”
A story that hails a hero must also hiss at a villain—in this case, the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, remembered by history as “the seaman’s astronomer.”
In all fairness, Maskelyne is more an antihero than a villain, probably more hardheaded than hardhearted. But John Harrison hated him with a passion, and with good reason. The tension between these two men turned the last stretch of the quest for the longitude prize into a pitched battle.
Maskelyne took up, then embraced, then came to personify the lunar distance method. The man and the method melded easily, for Maskelyne, who put off marrying until he was fifty-two, enslaved himself to accurate observation and careful calculation. He kept records of everything, from astronomical positions to events in his personal life (including each expenditure, large or small, over the course of four-score years), and noted them all with the same detached matter-of-factness. He even wrote his own autobiography in the third person: “Dr. M.,” this surviving handwritten volume begins, “is the last male heir of an ancient family long settled at Purton in the County of Wilts.” On subsequent pages, Maskelyne refers to himself alternately as “he” and “Our Astronomer”— even before his main character becomes astronomer royal in 1765.
The fourth in a long line of Nevils, Maskelyne was born on October 5, 1732. This made him about forty years younger than John Harrison, although he seemed never to have been young . Described by a biographer early on as “rather a swot” and “a bit of a prig,” he threw himself into the study of astronomy and optics with every intention of becoming an important scientist. Family letters refer to his older brothers, William and Edmund, as “Billy” and “Mun,” and call his younger sister, Margaret, “Peggy,” but Nevil was always and only Nevil.
Unlike John Harrison, who had no formal education, Nevil Maskelyne attended Westminster School and Cambridge
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