While he was engrossed by these inquiries, accident threw a pair of
globes into his hands, in October, 1734, by which his curiosity was so
much exalted, that he laid aside his Artemonius, and applied himself
to geography and astronomy. In ten days he was able to solve all the
problems in the doctrine of the globes, and had attained ideas so
clear and strong of all the systems, as well ancient as modern, that
he began to think of making new discoveries; and for that purpose,
laying aside, for a time, all searches into antiquity, he employed his
utmost interest to procure books of astronomy and of mathematicks, and
made such a progress in three or four months, that he seemed to have
spent his whole life upon that study; for he not only made an
astrolabe, and drew up astronomical tables, but invented new methods
of calculation, or such at least as appeared new to him, because they
were not mentioned in the books which he had then an opportunity of
reading; and it is a sufficient proof, both of the rapidity of his
progress, and the extent of his views, that in three months after his
first sight of a pair of globes, he formed schemes for finding the
longitude, which he sent, in January, 1735, to the Royal society at
London.
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