Timekeeper：Invention of Marine Chronometer

A It was, as Dava Sobel has described a phenomenon: ‘the greatest scientific problem of the age’.
The reality was that in the 18th century no one had ever made a clock that could suffer the great
rolling and pitching of a ship and the large changes in temperature whilst still keeping time
accurately enough to be of any use. Indeed, most of the scientific community thought such clock
impossibility. Knowing one’s position on the earth requires two very simple but essential
coordinates; rather like using a street map where one thinks in terms of how far one is up/down and
how far side to side.
B The longitude is a measure of how far around the world one has come from home and has no
naturally occurring base line like the equator. The crew of a given ship was naturally only
concerned with how far round they were from their own particular home base. Even when in the
middle of the ocean, with no land insight, knowing this longitude position is very simple in theory.
The key to knowing how far around the world you are from home is to know, at that very moment,
what time it is back home. A comparison with your local time (easily found by checking the
position of the Sun) will then tell you the time difference between you and home, and thus how far
round the Earth you are from home.
C Up until the middle of the 18th century, navigators had been unable to determine their position
at sea with accuracy and they faced the huge attendant risks of shipwreck or running out of supplies
before reaching their destination. The angular position of Moon and other bright stars was recorded
in three hour intervals of Greenwich Time. In order to determine longitude, sailors had to measure
the angle between Moon centre and a given star—lunar distance—together with height of both
planets using the naval sextant (六分仪). The sailors also had to calculate the Moon’s position if
seen form the centre of Earth. Time corresponding to Greenwich Time was determined using the
almanac. Then the difference between the obtained time and local time served for calculation in
longitude fromGreenwich. The great flaw in this ‘simple’ theory was-how does the sailor know time
back home when he is in the middle of an ocean?
D The obvious and again simple answer is that he takes an accurate clock with him, which he sets
to home time before leaving. All he has to do is keep it wound up and running, and he must never
reset the hands throughout the voyageThis clock then provides ‘home time’, so if, for example, it is
midday on board your ship and your ‘home time clock says that at that same moment it is midnight
at home, you know immediately there is a twelve hour time difference and you must be exactly
round the other side of the world, 180 degrees of longitude from home.
E After 1714 when the British government offered the huge sum of £20,000 for a solution to the
problem, with the prize to be administered by the splendidly titled Board of Longitude. The
Government prize of £20,000 was the highest of three sums on offer for varying degrees of
accuracy, the full prize only payable for a method that could find the longitude at sea within half a
[Link] the solution was to be by timekeeper (and there were other methods since the prize was
offered for any solution to the problem), then the timekeeping required to achieve this goal would
have to be within 2.8 seconds a day, a performance considered impossible for any clock at sea and
unthinkable for a watch，even under the very best conditions.
F It was this prize, worth about £2 million today, which inspired the self-taught Yorkshire
carpenter, John Harrison, to attempt a design for a practical marine clock. During the latter part of
his early career, he worked with his younger brother James. Their first major project was a
revolutionary turret clock for the stables at Brockles by Park, seat of the Pelham family. Theclock
was revolutionary because it required no lubrication. 18th century clock oils were uniformly poor
and one of the major causes of failure in clocks of the period. Rather than concentrating on
improvements to the oil, Harrison designed a clock which didn’t need it. In 1730 Harrison created a
description and drawings for a proposed marine clock to compete for the Longitude Prize and went
to London seeking financial assistance. He presented his ideas to Edmond Halley, the Astronomer
Royal. Halley referred him to George Graham, the country’s foremost clockmaker. He must have
been impressed by Harrison, forGraham personally loaned Harrison money to build a model of his
marine [Link] took Harrison five years to build Harrison Number One or HI. He demonstrated it to
members of the Royal Society who spoke on his behalf to the Board ofLongitude. The clock was
the first proposal that the Board considered to be worthy of a sea trial.
G After several attempts to design a betterment of H1, Harrison believed that the solution to
the longitude problem lay in an entirely different design. H4 is completely different from the
other three timekeepers. It looks like a very large pocket watch. Harrison’s son William set sail for
the WestIndies, withH4, aboard the ship Deptford on 18 November 1761. It was a remarkable
achievement but it would be some time before the Board of Longitude was sufficiently satisfied to
award Harrison the prize.
H John Hadley, an English mathematician, developed sextant, who was a competitor of Harrison at
that time for the luring prize. A sextant is an instrument used for measuring angles, for example
between the sun and the horizon, so that the position of a ship or aeroplane can be calculated.
Making this measurement is known as sighting the object, shooting the object, or taking a sight and
it is an essential part of celestial navigation. The angle, and the time when it was measured, can be
used to calculate a position line on an autical or aeronautical chart. A sextant can also be used to
measure the Lunar distance between the moon and another celestial object (e.g., star, planet) in
order to determine Greenwich time which is important because it can then be used to determine the
longitude.
I The majority within this next generation of chronometer pioneers wereEnglish, but the story is
by no means wholly that of English [Link] name, Pierre Le Roy of Paris, stands
out as a major presence in the early history of the chronometer. Another great name in the story is
that of the Lancastrian, Thomas Earnshaw, a slightly younger contemporary of JohnArnold’s. It was
Earnshaw who created the final form of chronometer escapement, the spring detent escapement, and
finalized the format and the production system for the marine chronometer, making it truly an
article of commerce, and a practical means of safer navigation at sea over the next century and half.

Questions 1-5.................................................................................
The reading Passage has ten paragraphs A-J.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-J, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
1 introduction of a mill man under awards
2 the definition of an important geographical term
3 arrival against Harrison’s invention emerged
4 problems of sailor encountered in identifying the position on the sea
5 economic assist from another counterpart
Questions 6-8.................................................................................
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage1
In boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
6 It is with no great effort by sailors to calculate the position when in the center
of the ocean.
7 To determine the longitude, a measurement of distance from moon to a given
star is a must.
8 In theory, by calculating the longitude degrees covered by a sail journey, the
distance between the start and the end points can be obtained.
Questions 9-13 ...............................................................................
Summary
Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than two
words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer
sheet.
Hundred years ago，sailors tried to identify their time by checking the sun or stars, but the trouble
was that they did need a reliable clock which showed time of 9And the timekeeper required would
be to precisely tell a tangible time lapse confined to 10 : An extraordinary craftsman, Harrison, once
created a novel clock which did not rely on 11 to work properly. Later on, competitive mode of 12
was another prominent device designed by Hadley, which calculated angle between sun and the
earth. Base on Harrison’s effort，Earns haw eventually implement key components for 13 which
had been used ever since.