NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Douglas Denny
Date: 2010 Feb 25, 13:14 -0800
Ah! but which came first the chicken or the egg?
Or, in this case: is 'Gunwhale Circle' a simple error by whoever wrote the label due to the fact a 'Borda Circle' (so called because of the inventor) has the same name in Portugese? It could be as simple as that.
I think your extrapolation needs further evidence of the use of a term like 'Gunwhale Circle' being in actual use by Portugese sailors contemporaneously with the use of the circle itself in the nineteenth century.
I have come across simple blunders in labelling in museums before where it is obvious the person who wrote the label did not 'know his onions'.
Douglas Denny.
Chichester. England.
----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------