TITLE: NATHANIEL BOWDITCH; 'THE PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR'
2001 15X15 INCHES

Nathaniel Bowditch:
1773-1838, American Mathematician and Navigator.

Though he never explored Antarctica, Nathaniel Bowditch’s discoveries in
marine and celestial navigation contributed significantly to the advancement of
piloting all ships on the high seas.

Bowditch was born in Salem Massachusetts, a major seaport for trading ships.
He came from a long line of shipmasters. By the time he entered school, he
was fond of mathematics and amazed his schoolmasters with his learning
capability. At the age of sixteen, Bowditch began to study Sir Isaac Newton’s
Principia, after he taught himself Latin to translate it. He discovered an
important error in the classic work. When he was twenty nine, Harvard University
awarded him with an honorary Master of Arts degree.

When Bowditch went to sea, as a second mate, on the first of five voyages to
the East Indies, John Hamilton Moore’s Practical Navigator (UK) was the
leading navigational text. Bowditch spent all his free time pouring over the
navigational tables where he found and corrected more than 8,000 errors. In 1802,
the publisher, with Bowditch’s help, released the book as The New American
Practical Navigator. Now in its 78th printing, it is published by the US Navy
Hydrographic Office. Bowditch insisted that the book be understood by sailors
with limited education. He also devised and used the navigational tool of
‘Dead Reckoning’ which has saved many sea voyagers, including Sir Ernest
Shackleton during his famous small boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia.