The \u2018world\u2019s\u2019 oldest calendar\u2019 is in Scotland<\/a>.\u00a0Roughly 10,000 years ago, its builders were marking the phases of the Moon in order to track the lunar months of the year.<\/p>\n Even Easter (the date of) depends on the Moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, is claimed<\/a> by Scotland<\/a>.<\/p>\n 1777. Cumberland Pacquet and Ware\u2019s Whitehaven Advertiser.<\/p>\n The Young Scholar\u2019s Delight, or Familiar Companion.<\/p>\n Containing 1. Amusing and instructive dialogues, etc. 2. Moral dialogue on the Duties of Youth. 3. Dialogues on the principles of the Christian religion. 4. A new compendious system of geography, to which is prefixed an accurate coloured map of the world, likewise a print of the solar system, giving a particular account of the planets (viz the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, etc) together with the fixed stars, their distances, magnitude, motions, periods, etc, enumerated; and their orbits, aspects and revolutions round the sun fully described.<\/p>\n Price 1 shilling and 6d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Almanacks offered purchasers the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the weather, remarkable eclipses, and \u2018other useful tables\u2019.<\/p>\n The Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland and Durham Sheet Almanack for 1778 included tide times for Whitehaven and other coastal towns. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Also in December 1777, it was of national interest that Charles Mason, who worked for the Astronomer Royal, had sent The Board of Longitude <\/a>solar and lunar tables, in the hope he might win the government prize for finding a method of calculating longitude at sea. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Whitehaven had played a part in experiments to work out longitude at sea in the summer of that year, with the tests carried out on board the ship Precedent.<\/p>\n In 1778, a Mr Weavor offered the townsfolk of Whitehaven a series of lectures on \u2018Natural and Experimental Philosophy\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mr Weavor was to exhibit his orrery (model of the solar system), to demonstrate the motion of the Sun and planets, to show how day, night and the seasons are produced, and how tides work.<\/p>\n He also offered a portable orrery and a planetarium for sale: the former for 21 guineas, the latter for six guineas.<\/p>\n On Tuesday night this week (July 16, 2019), an eclipse of the (full) Moon was visible in the UK. To be honest, unlike a solar eclipse (it gets dark in the day), a lunar eclipse isn\u2019t that exciting! But the one on the night of March 18, 1783 was deemed worthy of note.<\/p>\n There was a further lunar eclipse on September 10, 1783 \u2013 \u2018a very beautiful phenomenon\u2019.<\/p>\n However, while most heads in Whitehaven were turned skywards, a \u2018set of thieves and housebreakers\u2019 had theirs firmly on the opportunity to commit crimes in the dark.<\/p>\n In September 1786, the Cumberland Pacquet explained to readers what a hunter\u2019s moon was \u2013 above an advert for a book claiming that a kraken had been killed off the coast of eastern Scotland. The \u2018droll fish\u2019 was three miles long and someone was making a kettle in which to boil it.<\/p>\n Readers were more worried that year by the theory that the Moon\u2019s orbit round the Earth was decreasing in length. And that this would continue until such time as the solar system collapsed in on itself.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the idea of the Moon influencing health was prevalent \u2013 it being reported that the Moon was thought to influence fevers.<\/p>\n \u2018Fast-forward\u2019 to 1792 and there were adverts for Dr Ebenezer Sibly\u2019s Lunar Pills, for women. With an essay on \u2018the Diseases of Women\u2019 free with every bottle. By 1802, Dr Sibly was also promoting Solar Tincture. Sibly was a genuine physician \u2013 but also an astrologer and writer on the occult. And his treatise on the tinctures was available from Mr Jollie, printer, Carlisle.<\/p>\n In 1787, the Pacquet reported that Dr William Herschel had discovered two \u2018satellites belonging to the Georgium Sidus,\u2019 the planet he had discovered a few years earlier.<\/p>\n \u2018Georgium Sidus\u2019 = \u2018George\u2019s Star\u2019 and was named for George III. It may have earned him some Brownie points with the King, but the name didn\u2019t exactly catch on.<\/p>\n Herschel\u2019s new planet is now called Uranus \u2013 a name which stuck from 1850 but was first suggested by Johann Elert Bode. Who was German and had no idea he would have British schoolchildren sniggering for centuries.<\/p>\n William Herschel featured in the Pacquet again in July 1787, when it reported a talk he\u2019d given on Three Volcanos in the Moon.<\/p>\n Planetary scientists have long thought volcanic activity on the Moon ended a billion years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Herschel thought he had seen one lunar volcano show \u2018an actual eruption of fire, or luminous matter\u2019.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a modern explanation<\/a>.\u00a0And not all Cumbrian readers were convinced at the time (in 1787).<\/p>\n Robert Sewell, of Castle Sowerby, may be a \u2018who?\u2019 today, but he was a keen astromer and not afraid to criticise Herschel\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n He described himself in 1787 as the inventor of the \u2018cato dioptric telescope\u2019.<\/p>\n Google that and it brings up \u2018catadioptric\u2019 but no mention of Robert.<\/p>\n In October 1787, he wrote a long piece, printed in the Pacquet, about his observations on sun spots. His observations let him to pour cold water on the \u2018pretended volcanos on the Moon\u2019.<\/p>\n He also offered some advice for William Herschel on how to observe the same phenomena.<\/p>\n Robert Sewell was still looking for answers in 1795\u00a0when he wrote to The Gentleman\u2019s Diary or the Mathematical Repository; an Almanack, where he posed a question about the seeming link between the Northern Lights and rain\/storms.<\/p>\n A Topographical Dictionary of England comprising the several counties, cities, boroughs, corporate and market towns, parishes, and townships….. 7th Edition, by Samuel Lewis, London, 1848 says of Caldbeck parish<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2018Robert Sewell, a natural philosopher of considerable repute, was a native of the parish.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A Robert Sewell, Gentleman, of Bridge House, Castle Sowerby, died in 1807.<\/p>\nThe Moon and a moral dialogue<\/h2>\n
Time and tide and the study of longitude<\/h2>\n
![\"Cumbrian](\"http:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/sextant-151885_640.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Moon and a lot more than sixpence<\/h2>\n
Dark deeds by no moonlight<\/h2>\n
A ‘dead kraken’ and an astrologer<\/h2>\n
William Herschel \u2013 a household name<\/h2>\n
‘Fire on the Moon’<\/h2>\n
The Cumbrian who disagreed with Herschel<\/h2>\n
Who was Robert Sewell?<\/h2>\n