Unusual broadside catalogue/advertisement for Colin Lamont, advertising himself as seller of sea-atlases and charts, related scientific and timekeeping instruments and so on, as well as being a teacher of mathematics and navigation in Greenock, a small town on the shores of the River Clyde, in Scotland.
This broadsheet was pasted inside the cover of an example of Thomas Jefferys’ “North American Pilot”, Vol. I, Robert Laurie and James Whittle, 1798.
Arrived for Sale at / The Navigation Ware Room, Greenock, / Charts, Pilots, Maps, Atlases, Sea Books, &c. / An assortment so extensive as to consist of 500 different Publications, and about 25000 copies, / SELECTED AT LONDON / From all the Publishers there, and sold at nearly 10 per cent. Lower than usual here. – ALSO / Hadley’s Quadrants; Compasses; Pocket and Watch Ditto. / Cases of Drawing Instruments; Surveying Ditto. Pocket and / Ship Telescopes; Microscopes; Convex and Concave Lenses. / Barometers; Thermometers; Measuring Chains; Tapes, Scales. / Quadrants so low as 35s. but should not be trusted much under 50s. being liable to have glasses from the Jews / tho’ apparently good. Quadrants should be examined and adjusted every voyage. But not frequently cleaned. Besides / these are the following valuable INSTRUMENTS, not to be had elsewhere in Scotland: / Invariable Quadrants; Sextants; Pocket-book-Sextants; Large / Circular Instruments; Patent Compasses; Ditto without varia- / tion now making; Marine Barometers; New Globes; Charts; / Maps, and Nautical Publications, which being little known, / will therefore be described at some length, in a particular Catalogue now preparing by the Subscriber; who, solicitous of / extending to the Navigation from Clyde every advantage enjoyed from the Thames, has under trial by the Thermometer / and Celestial Observations, several inferior Time-keepers from 20-25 guineas; also capital / Pocket and Box Time-keepers for ascertaining the Longitude, / from 30 to 60 guineas by different Makers, which will be warranted fit for that purpose, or rejected after two or three / months experiments to try their Rates in heat and cold at the port they sailed from; without which, the best of them cannot / be depended upon: than a Table, shewing the use at Greenwich by Inspection, will be formed to prevent errors in apply- / ing Rates, as practiced by Adepts in their use. These articles, not being exposed in a public Shop, and Foreigners not expecting so complete a Collection in Scotland, / will be directed to the Ware-room, by a large Quadrant, west of the Spire, where application for particulars may be made to / COLIN LAMONT, / Teacher of Mathematics and Navigation, / who will give private instructions for the use of Time-keepers and Lunar Observations – Touches Good Compasses as / usual, with the large Loadstone – examines and adjusts Quadrants and Sextants for use, frequently without any charge / – recommends to have new ones also examined, being often obliged to return some even to good makers; it being only / such Artists as are also observers, that can be relied on in every particular; of these, a hint, for the benefit of Strangers in / London, will be given in the proposed Catalogue.
A Specimen of the late invented COMPASS WITHOUT VARIATION, round Britain and Ireland, may be seen / as above, and tried by sea or land. The principle of it being hitherto disclosed but to one maker, a few only particu- / lars bespoke, can be procured in some months. – The prices run from 15s. to 45s. – Directions for proving it, and for / detecting the errors of Charts by it, will be delivered with the Instrument: also the use of it in shewing the Moon’s true Southing – Eror of a Watch – Time of High Water, &c.
C.L. procures Useful Improved Watches, of the Lever, Duplex, and Detached Escapements; the latter of which will vary / less in a year, than common Watches in a month: and by a little care may even shew the Longitude, in short Voyages. / The respective prices, nearly 10-16-18 Guineas.
Of the Lever Watches, he has not yet satisfactory proof, for which purpose the Inventor is now furnishing them.
PRINTED BY W. JOHNSTON, GREENOCK. — October, 1800.
