When initially researched, it was envisaged that a comprehensive analysis of the invention and the immediate effect of the chronometer on navigation practices would be useful. However, this was not to be the case. Subsequent research established that the chronometer did not have the immediate and universal impact that was initially anticipated. This research established that the pivotal history of this invention lay prior to, rather than after the fact.
The inability to determine longitude, which the invention of the chronometer finally changed, had had a profound effect on the history of navigation, the art of sailing and the activities of historical empires. The events of this antecedent period provided a more substantial opportunity to explore many aspects affecting this part of maritime history.
To have resticted this work to the topic as originally envisaged would have produced a short, potentially sterile narrative, rather than the compehensive and indepth analysis that is now presented.
Technically, this project has provided me with the opportunity to delve into html coding and graphics manipulation (particularly in regard to the imagemap - the bullets and text were manually constructed and hand placed). In addition, images have been scanned from various hard copy sources and imported from other documents.
Disappointingly, there was little in the way of topic-specific graphics on the internet (about ten were downloaded), and virtually no text on the topic of the invention of the chronometer (none was downloaded) but links to some sites have been provided.
Various aspects of the original proposal in the section entitled "Parts of the Publication", have been varied in order to facilitate the above mentioned approach. In doing so, the intention to present the information in chronological periods has been largely adhered to. But the period of c.1720 - 1772 was expanded to accommodate the relevant historical and background information which was discovered to be so important to the story. That is, it was not what happened after the invention of the chronometer that was important to its story, but what occurred before to bring about the invention.
Secondly, comment has been made on the difference in navigational techniques before and after the invention of the chronometer, but again, this was not as central to the account of history as was first thought.
Finally, the intention to include subdirectories with full sized graphic accessable via thumbnails and the like has been realised. Of those graphics used, only those considered sufficiently important have been allocated the disk space for enlargement on separate documents.
Of those graphics nominated for inclusion in the original proposal, the following were included:
Consistent with the author's stated desire to include the navigational contributions of prominent navigators to this history of longitude, a part of this work has been dedicated to Captain James Cook.
Ultimately, the only real difference between the originally stated intentions and the end product, is the shift to the period in which all the relevant activities occurred.
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