C. The simple and again obvious answer is that one takes an accurate clock with him, which he sets
to the home time before leaving. A comparison with the local time (easily identified by checking the
position of the Sun) would indicate the time difference between the home time and the local time, and thus
the distance from home was obtained. The truth was that nobody in the 18
th
century had ever managed to
create a clock that could endure the violent shaking of a ship and the fluctuating temperature while still
maintaining the accuracy of time for navigation.
D. After 1714, as an attempt to find a solution to the problem, the British government offered a
tremendous amount of £20,000, which were to be managed by the magnificently named ‘Board of
Longitude’. If timekeeper was the answer (and there could be other proposed solutions, since the money
wasn’t only offered for timekeeper), then the error of the required timekeeping for achieving this goal
needed to be within 2.8 seconds a day, which was considered impossible for any clock or watch at sea, even
when they were in their finest conditions.
E. This award, worth about £2 million today, inspired the self-taught Yorkshire carpenter John
Harrison to attempt a design for a practical marine clock. In the later stage of his early career, he worked
alongside his younger brother James. The first big project of theirs was to build a turret clock for the stables
at Brockelsby Park, which was revolutionary because it required no lubrication. Harrison designed a marine
clock in 1730, and he travelled to London in seek of financial aid. He explained his ideas to Edmond Halley,
the Astronomer Royal, who then introduced him to George Graham, Britain’s first-class clockmaker.
Graham provided him with financial aid for his early-stage work on sea clocks. It took Harrison five years to
build Harrison Number One or HI. Later, he sought the improvement from alternate design and produced H4
with the giant clock appearance. Remarkable as it was, the Board of Longitude wouldn’t grant him the prize
for some time until it was adequately satisfied.