Around 1700 – A Royal Committee was formed to gather ideas and a prize of £20,000 was offered to the person who could determine longitude at sea.

One suggested method was that a mysterious substance called “powder of sympathy” if rubbed on a bandage taken from a wounded dog would cause the dog to howl in pain, even if the dog were hundreds of miles away from the bandage. If this were done in England at a predetermined time every day, then the dog’s howling would give the navigator a daily time signal. Of course if the ship were traveling on an extended journey, the dog would have to be re-injured to keep the wound fresh. Luckily for the dogs, this scheme didn’t pan out