"otnmbrd" wrote in message news:Hgz_b.5818
G Think you just pulled an "otn". I think it was extensively used
around 1800, but had fallen to a point of much less use by 1900.

You're right in the sense of "anyone who really needs to know the longitude, or
correct time, uses Lunar distances." However, I suspect that the vast majority
of mariners simply found their latitude, and went east or west from there.

It was only 30 years earlier the Captain Cook used Lunar Distances and was
hailed as a great surveyor for his accomplishments. His work was based on
Maskelyne's lunar distance methods which were published in 1762.