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Cape Belsham, At Last!!
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2017 Feb 14, 11:36 -0500
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2017 Feb 14, 11:36 -0500
Gentlemen
Thanks to David, we can now read Worsley's Diary and see what it has to say about Cape Belsham.
Worsley, in his Diary, wrote:
"Immediately after breakfast the sun obligingly came out. This was the first sunny day with a clear enough horizon to get a sight for rating my chronometers. This I got, but being unable to get the Latitude of Cape Belsham (where our camp was situated) except for doubtful chartlets in Nordenskjold's Book Antarctica, I assumed the position to be 61°04'S.Latitude 54°50'W.Longitude. This made my chronometer 12m52s slow + losing 7 seconds per day"
I interpret Worsley's shorthand to be for
Nordenskjold, Otto: "Antarctica: Or Two Years Amongst the Ice of the South Pole", 1901
There is a copy of this online. I searched Nordenskjold's Book for any references to Elephant Island, Cape Belsham and any charts. Findings
1) No references to Cape Belsham
2) One reference to Elephant Island, page 415 (the index has this as 416, not significant). That reference indicates that they could see Elephant Island in the distance, but did not visit it.
3) There IS one chart which included Elephant Island. I have attached the entire chart and the Elephant Island Detail.
The first thing to notice is that once again, the coastal outline of Elephant Island remains fanciful. We cannot see any of the three minor peninsulas that appear on definitive charts of the modern era.
Secondly, the grid marks in the chart are WHOLE DEGREES. On the top, there are markings for 65°, 60° and 55°. On the left, there are markings for 61°, 62°...67°.
Using a graphical editing program, I scaled the position (61°4'S54°50'W) and placed a red dot on the expanded section. Please observe that position. It appears to be on the easternmost point of Elephant Island.
Of great interest is that, in the first usage of the word chronometer in the diary passage, it is clearly PLURAL. Worsley writes "chronometerS". The second use has the tail end of the word obscured by the preprinted "TUESDAY [18-348]. None the less, there can be no further doubt of the presence of more than one timepiece.
Of concern is that the Diary states that the chronometer is losing 7 seconds per day, while the Navigational Log states that the chronometer is losing 5 seconds per day. This discrepancy is unresolved at this time. Lars and I both independently calculated that the chronometer was losing 11 seconds per day. However, that includes Worsley's obscure 1m4s chronometer adjustment of 28 April, 5 days into the boat journey.
To answer David's question about when the Diary appears to have been written. There is a line on 28 April which states "At the end of the boat journey I gave them back to Sir Earnest all washed away at the edges". So clearly, the Diary is not a daily diary but actually a retrospective.
Brad
On Feb 14, 2017 5:50 AM, "Bob Crawley" <NoReply_Crawley@navlist.net> wrote:
David and others - I'm trying to keep up with this topic and wish I'd been following it when vsiting the SPRI in Cambridge last year. If it helps I could go back, about 60nM, and research specific documents but would need some guidance.
Regards
Bob C
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