[Williams, Jonathan]:

$10,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

THERMOMETRICAL NAVIGATION. BEING A SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS TENDING TO PROVE THAT BY ASCERTAINING THE RELATIVE HEAT OF THE SEA-WATER FROM TIME TO TIME, THE PASSAGE OF A SHIP THROUGH THE ... Presentation copy of the first edition of this scientific treatise on thermometrical navigation, inscribed "from the author" on the titlepage.Jonathan Williams (1750–1815) was the great-nephew of Benjamin Franklin. He served as Franklin's secretary during the latter's residence in France as U.S. ambassador, and for part of that time was a U.S. commercial agent. While in France he also studied military science, especially fortification. He returned to the U.S. in 1785 and served for several years as a judge. In 1801 he was appointed major of the 22nd regiment of artillerists and engineers in the regular army, and later that year he was appointed inspector of fortifications and took command of the post at West Point. The following year he became the first superintendent of West Point as a school. Later he returned to Philadelphia and acted for several years as vice president and corresponding secretary of the American Philosophical Society. Most of his publications, unlike the present one, treat military topics.Williams's investigation into thermometrical navigation built upon the research of his great-uncle. Benjamin Franklin began his study of the Gulf Stream in 1768, while serving as the postmaster of the British Colonies in North America. Franklin had observed that the west

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