France was going to war with Spain to take the Netherlands. The Spanish, English, and Dutch teamed up to fight the French. The English backed out of it and got a beating from the Dutch so they joined back up to fight the French. A group of 15 English ships went off course and they couldn’t check their longitude so they ended up crashing on some rocks. The English people were very angry about this so some very rich people set a reward out for anything that could tell you you longitude. A rich man devoted most of his time trying to make the longitude calculator. He ended up making it. The octant is a device that uses mirrors and the sun. You point it at the horizon and aline the mirrors with the sun until you got it right. Then you check you longitude.
School Essays 