NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Why four cardinal compass points?
From: Roger Puttman
Date: 2026 Sep 23, 17:49 -0700
From: Roger Puttman
Date: 2026 Sep 23, 17:49 -0700
I don't need to look it up. 360 just happens to be highly divisible (a new maths term?). So, divide by 4, get 90 deg. Two of them gets you 180, Half a circle. To get a mid lat for a chart draw a line at that latitude, say 32 South at 32 deg. Then tick of NM at your scale, the drop those lines straght down to you lat line. Instant longitude scale. The point is that 360 is great for geometry and the ancients knew it. No decimal system fits like it. Cardinal points? The major points. Then all the sub points flow from that. ENE Etc etc till you box the compass.
