The Haven-Finding Art: The History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook

E.G.R. Taylor

published by Hollis & Carter, London 1956

Table of Contents:

Part I:  Introduction

             1. Signs in the Sky - open-sea voyages - direction by sun and star - direction by winds - home-blowing winds

             2. The Surface and Floor of the Sea - tide and tide-rips - ocean currents and the gulf stream - fogs and fish - sea-floor patterns - danger and safety in-shore

Part II:  Navigation without Magnetic Compass or Chart

              3.  The Phoenicians and the Greeks - in soundings - Red Sea sailings - Odysseus and the Phaecians - Pythea of Marseilles - port-books and pilot-books - the ancient wind-rose -sailing the Indian Ocean - sea-marks.

              4. The Irish and the Norseman - monks and anchorites - voyages to Iceland -shore-sighting birds - voyage to Greenland - The  King's Mirror - Octhere and King Alfred.

Part III:  With Compass and Chart

               5. In the Mediterranean Sea - lodestone and compass - the new wind-rose - Compasso da Navigare - Carta Pisana - Catalan Chart-makers - The Toleta de Marteloio.

               6. In the Eastern and Western Oceans - Marco Polo - Arab navigators - star altitudes - an English Rutter - navigation by lead and line - tides and tide-tables - three medieval voyages.

Part IV: Instruments and Tables

               7. The Portuguese Pioneers - Greek geography recovered - Prince Henry the Navigator - sailing by altura - taking the sun - the oldest navigating manual - Pierre Garcia's Rutter.

               8. The Errors of Compass and Plain Chart - variation of the compass - Dr. Nunez and the true rhumb - John de Castro and deviation - John Rotz and the chart - Martin Cortes' manual.

               9. The English Awakening -foreign pilots in England - Richard Chancellor and John Dee - Stephen and William Borough - Bourne's Regiment of the Sea - Robert Norman the compass-maker - the 'Waggoner.'

Part V: Towards Mathematical Navigation

               10. The True Chart - Thomas Hariot and Edward Wright - the Table of meridianal parts mid-latitude sailing - re-knotting the log-line - the learned societies - re-measuring the degree - Edmund Halley's charts - astronomical and nautical tables.

               11. The Longitude Solved - the Greenwich and Paris observatories - the mathematical sailor - a Commission for the longitude - the Rouille prizes - Hadley's sextant - the perfect timepiece - Sully and Le Roy - John Harrison - triumph of the chronometer.

Appendix - Navigation in Medieval China