A New History of Navigation

Extract

Professor E. G. R. Taylor's review, in the April 1955 issue of this Journal, of my book A History of Marine Navigation has passed unnoticed by me during a long absence, and I beg leave to offer a few comments.

The reviewer's introductory remark is indisputably correct; the title is not an adequate one. The Swedish title, literally translated, is From Noah's Dove to the Gyro-compass: navigational art, ancient and modern. In the earlier chapters I have not followed a chronological sequence but rather proceeded in order of the degree of complication of the methods used. In the later part of the book, I admit that there are many lacunae. However, as the reader will find, there was no ‘final jump’ to electronic navigation; there were several stepping-stones, viz. wind- and current-charts, the gyro-compass, radio-location, and echosounding.