As Meriwether Lewis travels to the Harpers Ferry armory, Robert Patterson in Philadelphia writes to President Jefferson to tell him that he is preparing a notebook of formulas to help Lewis work with celestial data.
Excerpt from Patterson’s Astronomy Notebook
Western Historical Manuscript Collection, Columbia, Missouri.
Transcription:
Distance — Time per watch
Moon’s altitude
or 
Sun or Star’s altitude
Distance — Time per watch
or Sun or Star’s altitude
Moon’s altitude
Distance — Time per watch
Lewis must have smiled at Patterson’s whimsical embellishments of the astronomer’s shorthand symbols.
Philadelphia March 15th. 1803.
Sir
I am preparing a set of astronomical formulæ for Mr. L. [Lewis] and will, with the greatest pleasure, render him every assistance in my power—
The other formulæ for computing the time, alts. &c are all expressed in the same manner, viz. by the common algebraic signs; which renders the process extremely easy even to boys or common sailors of but moderate capacities.
I am, Sir, with the most perfect respect & esteem, your obedient Servant
Rt. Patterson[1]Robert Patterson to Thomas Jefferson, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0053. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | Robert Patterson to Thomas Jefferson, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0053. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 70–74.] |
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