Scriblerian Projections of Longitude: Arbuthnot, Swift, and the Agency of Satire in a Culture of Invention

摘要

Devising a practical method to determine longitude at sea was the culturally predominant scientific and technical problem of the eighteenth century. Its solution had been raised as a direct concern of the state in other countries previously, but it became the focus of considerable British investment in July 1714, when the Longitude Act appointed Commissioners to judge all related projects and award up to ￡2000 to experimenters, and pay up to ￡20000 if a method gave a correct result to within half a degree of longitude, equivalent to 30 geographical miles. The precise reasons for establishing the British reward are still unknown, but the Act is claimed as "testimony of the utilitarianism of those active in the propagation of Newtonian natural philosophy" (Stewart, The Rise of Public Science 202). Its ramifications, however, were not only scientific, technological, and navigational, but also cultural; and it had human, as well as economic, costs.