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The following table contains the results of an attempt which I made, conjointly with M. Mathieu, member of the Academy of Sciences, and of the Bureau des Longitudes, to estimate with precision the extent of the surface of the various states of America. We made use of maps on which the limits had been corrected according to the statements published in my Recueil d'Observations Astronomiques.
The accurate knowledge which we now possess of the form and dimensions of this globe of earth and water which we inhabit, has been entirely owing to the superior skill of the moderns in the mathematical sciences, as applicable to the practice of navigation, and to the observation and calculation of the motions of the heavenly bodies, for the ascertainment of latitudes and longitudes.
With respect to our geographical observations on the Navigators' Islands, I must make one remark that all the longitudes found by us differ from those of La Pérouse by from 20 to 23', and the points observed lying so many miles more easterly than he considered them.
The longitudes have been estimated by the use of chronometers, but the sudden recall of the party left the latter part of the task incomplete. Any defect arising from the latter cause may be considered as in a great degree compensated by the connections referred to with the work of Major Graham and the surveys of the previous years.
It was not to be expected, however, that Ptolemy could accurately fix the longitude and latitude of places in the remoter parts of the then known world; his latitudes and longitudes are accordingly frequently erroneous, but especially the latter.
He began a catalogue of the fixed stars, with their latitudes and their longitudes measured from the equinoctial point; by the help of which Hipparchus, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, made the great discovery that the equinoctial point had moved.
Hipparchus framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their places with reference to the ecliptic, by their latitudes and longitudes. Altogether, he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation. Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was expounded by improved methods.
When Kepler arrived he was told that their longitudes agreed within a couple of minutes of arc, but that something was wrong with the latitudes. He found, however, that even in longitude their positions showed discordances ten times as great as they admitted, and so, to clear the ground of assumptions as far as possible, he determined to use true oppositions.
Astl 1.114. In the first edition of Hakluyt's collection, this voyage is given under the name of Robert Gainsh, who was master of the John Evangelist, as we learn by a marginal note at the beginning of the voyage in both editions. Astl. Astl. Astl. In this version we have added the true latitudes and longitudes in the text between brackets; the longitude from Greenwich always understood.
When he left them, it was with the intention of returning; and they exacted of him a promise to hide, even from Peters, the longitudes traversed during the entire journey from Hili-li until they should touch the land of some civilized people, or meet with a ship; to which promise Pym rigidly adhered.
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