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Subject: Re: Preston's paper on Lewis & Clark's Navigation
From: Bruce Stark (Stark4677@XXX.XXX)
Date: Sat Jun 07 2003 - 22:31:42 EDT
Fred,
Unfortunately I haven't gotten back to Lewis and Clark this year, but keep
hoping to. As to the latitude errors: 5' my elbow! After the Mandan Villages it
was more like half a degree! We discussed this on the list before you joined.
Last August I tried to show why the smaller errors were not surprising, and
gave a definite reason for that huge error. That post, which included the
numbers from the Journals, is at:
http://www.irbs.com/lists/navigation/0208/0004.html
Gary Moulton's The Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark is the place to get
any data you want. It's all there, and it's in paperback now.
Preston was trying to understand the nautical astronomy of that era in terms
of twentieth century celestial. Still, it's a valuable contribution. We
discussed his paper on the list some time back. My post is at:
http://www.irbs.com/lists/navigation/0207/0020.html
Bruce
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