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Re: Persistence and demise of Lunars
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2017 Dec 11, 17:56 -0500
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2017 Dec 11, 17:56 -0500
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Roger W. Sinnott <NoReply_Sinnott@fer3.com> wrote:
On Dec. 20, 1820, when they spotted land, they thought it was Ducie Island but we now know it was Henderson, 70 miles farther west. So that's one mistake lunars could have avoided.
Wouldn't have helped. Henderson, like Pitcairn, was not to be found in their copy of Bowditch. Only Ducie Island was listed with its Latitude and Longitude. Not that it really mattered, since their ultimate destination was the west coast of South America.
Captain Henderson had only discovered his namesake isle the year before. Pitcairn had been known to the Royal Navy since 1814, but a little misunderstanding at the time between the two nations obviously delayed the spread of that information. Not until the 1821 edition of Bowditch did Pitcairn make the list. Henderson was included in 1826.
Don Seltzer
