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Further, expressing Latitude and Longitude with long strings of numbers after a decimal point is decidedly modern and a function of electronic computation.  In older texts, the degrees, minutes and seconds are expressed as whole numbers, sometimes with a decimal after the minutes or sometimes with a decimal after the seconds, depending upon the precision required of the problem.

So with a longitude = W0.314159, with the tightest precision I have found, it would have been expressed as W 0⁰ 18’ 50.97”.  

Texts from the prior century (1900’s) would have expressed it as W 0⁰ 18’.8

That’s hardly p

Best Regards

Brad

Al, you wrote:
"Frank, do you think that the location was intentionally placed or is it just happenstance?"

Definitely intentional. George III was a genius! :-)

Alas, no. It would make a terrific conspiracy theory though, wouldn't it? I can picture the movie version even now... Nicholas Cage could star in it, and we could call it "National Treasure 3: Treasure in the UK". We'll make millions.

The longitude only works out to pi/10 because I moved the pushpin in Google Maps a few feet until those exact numbers came up. Since Greenwich longitudes weren't measured, or at least weren't considered any sort of "standard longitude" until after that observatory was built, we would require some time travellers to make this conspiracy work. Also, these are modern WGS84 longitudes. If we adjust so that the meridian line at Greenwich is back to zero where it's supposed to be, then the pi/10 meridian ends up a few hundred feet further west.

-FER

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