Note 93 — Chapter XVII · JENS ERIKSEN MUNK. FOXE AND JAMES. WOOD

This is the first place in which I have found the use of log and line mentioned, although it had been known for at least 60 years; indeed an obscure passage in Pigafetta seems to suggest its use by Magellan. Bourne, in his Regiment of the Sea, published in 1573, describes the log-ship as so made that it remains where it falls into the water, while the line runs out during a fixed interval by a minute glass. The intervals between the knots on the log line are to a minute as a mile is to an hour. In Bourne’s Inventions or Devices, No. 21, published in 1578, the inventor of the log and line is said to be Humphrey Cole of the Mint in the Tower; the maker of the instruments for Frobisher’s first and second voyages bought in 1576.