Papers of the Board of Longitude"The sixty-eight volumes of the papers of the Board of Longitude document in rich detail many of this public institution’s remarkably wide-ranging activities over more than a century (1714-1828). The 1714 Longitude Act nominated twenty-two Commissioners, including parliamentarians, administrators, scholars and naval officers. Their official tasks were to judge proposals for determining longitude at sea, fund experiments to try what seemed viable projects, and reward schemes judged successful according to the Act’s stringent criteria."