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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Preston's paper on Lewis & Clark's Navigation
From: Ken Muldrew
Date: 2003 Jun 8, 00:33 -0600
From: Ken Muldrew
Date: 2003 Jun 8, 00:33 -0600
> I was referring to the average discrepencies. Yes, there were some > lemons in the observations. You also have to remember that L&C's own > calculation of latitude from their data, which calculations they > apparently made, might be better than those of Preston, since L&C were > closer to the data, and not using a computer (which will blindly > calculate with garbage that a human would discard). Finally, perhaps > the "modern" interpretation of where L&C were located is incorrect. Many of the landmarks that they noted, as well as their excellent notes on courses, place them pretty well for much of their journey. I think that the huge errors demonstrate that they just didn't make observations a high priority (or perhaps they weren't trained sufficiently in the art). > A > similar phenomenon seems to have occurred with the famous Canadian > explorer, David Thompson, around some lake up in the Rockies. You may be referring to the Gottfred article where it is claimed (with good reason) that Thompson is actually 6 miles away from where his biographer puts him. This is a pretty small error compared to L&C's many minutes on their latitudes. Also, it seems partly due to his biographer not really caring very much, as her minimal notes on his navigation technique consist of a couple of not-too-relevant cribs from Robertson. Ken Muldrew