The Portland daily press., 1897-07-14
NAuscoPY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
Bottineau,s Lost Art of Discov ering Ships
at sea-Emanations Affecting the At
mosphere.
(From the Pail Mall Gazette.)

| uSlNGT Du6 QUIET lltiJ ooitAS
neau, and dug him up. Bottlnneau hao
lain there these hundred years, not 50
much forgotten as unknown. inns Is
the more-or the less-surprising because
Bottineau was a very remarkable man.
He was the inventor of the art and mys-
terry of nauscopy.
Nauscopy, according to bottlneau' Is
the art of divining the whereabouts OF
ships SO far out at sea as to be i've or SIX
hundred miles beyond the visible horl-
zon. Bottineau was not only able 10 90
this. He could tell how many ships there
were out there, how far apart they were'
and could furnish an approximate estima-
ton of their rate of sailing and OF their
total tonnage. The mystery, OF course,
was how he did it.
Bottineau seems to have been IN no
great hurry to explain. He was, perhaps
naturally anxious to remain tho only
nauscopist. Or he may have felt that ex-
PLANTATION was beyond him. 1t certainly
seems to have been, for when, at last ne
did attempt to clear up the my stery t"at
shrouded his art, and wrote that memolre
which has lately been exhumed, he only
succeeded in making the Incompetent
sible rather more so.
| We gather, however, that Bottineau,
who had been first in the French navy,
then in the French East India Company S
sea service, and who, in 1904, when he
first hit upon his discovery, was some
thing in the nature of Port Inspector at
Port Louis, in the Isle of France that
was then, in the Mauritius that is now
we gather that Bottineau had improved
his every day acquaintance with the hori-
zon into such close intimacy as to be able
to detect upon it certain "phenomena"
which nobody else could see, and, indeed,
which nobody else had ever thought of
looking for. Gradually these manifesto
| tiOnS on the horizon became more and
more closely connected in the mind of
Bottineau with the presence of ships at
varying degrees of invisibility beyond it.
They grew clearer as the ship, or ships,
approached; fainter as they receded.
They were stronger if the approaching
vessels were many, and fast and big;
weaker if they were few, and slow and
small. There might be a horizontal mani
festation and no ship come of it; but
there could come no ship without man
| Hesitation.
| For many years Bottineau paraded Port
| Louis, taking his observations by day or
night, in any kind of light mostly with
| his unaided eye, occasionally with the
assistance of hand mirror and always
hugging his invention. 1t got to be 1880
before he mentioned it. When he did the
sensation in the isle was certainly rather
| strong. The desire to know how it was
done was indeed SO strong that Bottineau
appears to have suffered considerable per-
sonal Inconvenience on account of his re-
| fusal to explain This it may have been
which decided him to communicate his
discovery to the then Minister of Marine
the Marechal Due de Castries.
| That functionary, as was to be expected
took an official view of the matter. He
said he must have the alleged discovery
officially confirmed before he could take
any notice of it. Bottineau agreed to an
| unconditional trial extending over the
next eight months. During that period
he undertook that no vessel should APP
proach Port Louis without having been
previously announced by him. On May
| Is, 1852, the trial began. If the results
recorded are to be accepted, Bottineau
came out of it in triumphantly conclu-
| Siye manner.
The very next day, May 16, he foretold
the arrival of three vessels, all three be-
Gained within forty eight hours sail, if a
breeze sprang up from the proper quarter.
The breeze springing up, ship was duly
signalled as approaching on the 18th,
another appeared on the 18th, and on the
Goth the third turned up. These were all
French Presumably there was some
subtle difference in the horizontal mani
festation when the approaching ship was
foreigner. Anyhow, Bottineau's next
announcement portended the arrival of
l thrQn Gtra C1nnQGSinn and tbrna
| Dutchmen duly cast anchor.
| In September he scored heavily. The
French fleet was two months overdue, de-
tanned by contrary winds. On Sept. II
the wind shifted. Bottineau said the fleet
would arrive on the 25th, and on the 25th
De Peynier actually did arrive. A day
| or two later, Bottineau declared that
there was another fleet in the immediate
vicinity. This somewhat frightened the
| isle from her propriety, for this feet could
only be an English fleet. The satisfac-
ton was, no doubt, general, when the
nauscopist decided that it was composed
of East Indiamen. De Peynier detailed
give Suffren at Trinocmalee the Office.
Sure enough, fleet Of East Indiamen
was made out by the messengers. Stuff
rem missed them. He would have found
Bottineau useful.
| At Port Louis they had come to the
conclusion UnaU Gne nauScOplSG nau proved
his claim to the title. Through the
"Sieur de Cere, Director of the Kings
Garden" they offered him 10, 600 livres
down and pension of 200 more for his
secret. Bottineau refused this offer, and
events, on the whole, failed to justify his
refusal. In 1884 he took passage home,
on the Fier, to open up negotiations. in
person with the Minister. He did a deal
of excellent nauscopy during the voyage.
He avoided no less than twenty seven
hostile cruisers and three trimmings
ashore. But Observation-Disclosures not
withstanding the certificate she brought
with him from the isle, including one
from Suffren himself-Paris could only
be got to treat him as a visionary, and
the Ministerial Due to decide that there
was nothing in his art and mystery-as
revealed by him. at any rate.
Bottineau's explanation of it amounted
to this: Every ship at sea produces
| tsemanations. These emanations affect
the Transparency of the atmosphere.
| Thus meteoric effects are produced upon
the horizon which can be seen and read
to all men-once they know how This
might have done for our hierophant of
| +oo3o+,lism TO whom the siemana tions',