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From: Alexandre Eremenko (no email)
Date: Thu Sep 16 2004 - 12:03:51 EDT
Question from a new member:
Do the following islands exist (or DID they exist in XIX century?):
Tabor (a.k.a. Maria Teresa) and
Ernest Leguve Reef?
According to Jules Verne ("Children of Capitan Grant" and
"Misterious Island"), the island of Tabor (Maria Teresa in French
maps) is on the parallel 37 degrees S, somewhere West of New Zealand.
The main action of "Misterious Island" takes place on the
"Lincoln Island", as Jules Verne's characters call it, about 100
miles from Tabor island.
When I read these novels in my childhood,
I checked with the World Atlas
(published in Soviet Union
in 1959), and both islands were exactly where Jules Verne placed
them. They were called Maria Teresa Reef and Ernest Leguve Reef.
(I cannot be 100% sure in the spelling of these names: I've
seen them written only in Russian!)
However, in the later years, using all modern US maps I could find,
and the Internet, I could never find these islands again.
Unfortunately I do not possess this old Russian atlas anymore.
Can anybody help me to solve this riddle?
I can provide the precise coordinates from Jules Verne.
One conjecture is that the islands existed in XIX century but
then disappeared as a result of the motion of the ocean floor...
Or did Jules Verne invent them, and Russian map makers placed them
according to Jules Verne? :-)
Alex.
P.S. Probably I have to introduce myself as a new member:
Alex Eremenko,
Professor of Mathematics
www.math.purdue.edu/~eremenko
I wanted to be a sailor since I remember myself,
and a navigator since the age of 14. Then I discovered that
one has to learn mathematics to become a navigator, so I started
to study it and... still doing this:-)
A month ago I was enormously surprised that there are
still people who discuss and even
practice Lunar Distances, so decided to
join.
On Thu, 16 Sep 2004, Peter Fogg wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
>
> >From Gordon Talge
>
> I think Pitcarin Island was remote and mischarted and that is why the
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