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222 Doc. 44 .
SWEDENBORG’S CORRESPONDENCE.
promised to get the others out of the custom-house, should
the particulars above-mentioned come to hand. As you
are probably acquainted with the other points that I have
discovered or investigated in mathematics, you will not care
to have them repeated here ; yet of the actual discoveries
I have made in them I prepared a list in my letter to Prof.
Elfvius54. With regard to my discovery for finding the
terrestrial longitude by means of the moon , I am convinced
that it is the only one that can be given, that it is also the
easiest, and in fact the right one. The only objection that
can be raised against it, is, that the orbit of the moon is
not yet thoroughly reduced into lunar tables; but these are
promised by Flamsteed, and he has constructed such good
ones, that I am sure, they will always and without error serve
to show the moon’s motion . If this is really so, I have won
the whole game, and I make bold to say (after having well
considered what I say), that none of the others who have
endeavoured to find the longitude by the moon have gained
it. Suppose the motion of the moon was really rectified, no
other method, of all those that have been projected by others,
can be used for this purpose, except mine alone ; this much,
at least, Dr. Halley has admitted to me orally.
I have not, here in England, among this civil and proud people,
met with great encouragement, I have laid it aside for some
other place. When I tell them that I have some project
about longitude, they treat it as an impossibility, and there
fore I do not wish to discuss it here. Let what I enclose
be submitted to some mathematicians, perhaps it might be
sent to a French mathematician, e. g. Abbé Bignons , that he
may pass judgment upon it.
As my speculations made me for a time not so sociable
as is serviceable and useful for me, and as my spirits are
somewhat exhausted, I have taken refuge for a short time
in the study of poetry, that I might be somewhat recreated by
it. I intend to gain a little reputation by this study, on some
occasion or other, during this year, and I hope I may have
advanced in it as much as may be expected from membut
time and others will perhaps judge of this. Still, after a
time, I intend to take, mathematics up again, although, at
55 But as
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