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Today when we speak about navigation the first thing that
comes to our mind is the GPS based navigation system in our smart phones. You
have to just type the destination and within seconds you get the step by step
directions to reach the place. But have you ever imagined, how did the people
in the olden days travel from one place to another without the technology that
we have today.
Yes, the people in olden days too had their own means of
navigation. They too traveled to different places with the help of navigation.
Their navigation systems were not technology driven or as simple as we have
today. They had to take lot of pains, had to put up lot of calculations to look
for the directions.
Let us look at some of the discoveries that helped people in
the navigation.
1. Compass: This is one of the biggest invention which helped people in navigation not only in the olden days but is used by people even today. It has his history before the 16th century, but it was only in the 16th century that it had evolved in its true form and used by the explorers. It has a magnetic stone which was used to magnetized the compass needle to find the direction.
2. Astrolabe: Astrolabe is an very ancient astronomical instrument. It was used to solve complex problems related to time and position of the sun and stars. This helped the people in navigating from one place to another. There have been lot of instruments with different variations in the astrolabe over the years.
3. Back-staff: This is again a very ancient instrument used for navigation invented by John Davis in 1590. It was used to determine the latitude by measuring the altitude of the sun. The back-staff made it possible to read the altitude of the sun and moon in minutes rather than degrees so, for the first time, navigators could consistently find their latitude to within a few miles.
4. Cross-staff: Cross staff is the early version of back-staff. Its origin is found in the 14th century. It was used a land survey tool which was later also used in the sea navigation. By moving one of the sighting vanes along the staff, angular measurements between the horizon and a celestial body can be read off the scale on the staff. Different lengths of vane are used according to the angle being observed.
5. Nocturnal: It is again a very ancient navigational instrument used to determine the time with the help of celestial stars. It was used observe certain stars which are related to the Pole Star in Ursa Minor, which helped in determining the time reading.
6. Reflecting Circle: This is a 19th century navigational instrument in a form of a graduated circle. It was generally used in sea to determine the longitude by measuring the distance between the spotter and the moon.
7. Sand Glass: Sand glass finds its origin way back in the 3rd century and was used to measure the time. It was around 11th century when people actually started using it as a navigational instrument to keep a track of time.
These is just a glimpse of some of the instrument used by
the explorers in the olden days. In order to keep track of time, distance,
location, speed, direction etc., they had to use so many different kind of
instruments. But great were those people who with so many complexities, still could
explore the entire earth and discovered different places.
