LONGCAMP.COM'S NOVA ALBION ANNEX Introduction to DETERMINATION OF LATITUDE BY FRANCIS DRAKE ON THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA IN 1579 In 38. deg. 30. min. we fell with a conuenient and fit harborough, and Iune 17. came to anchor therein: where we continued till the 23. day of Iuly following. The World Encompassed Skip ahead to article. About 1595, Jodicus Hondius drew the Portus Novea Albionis -- a plan of Drakes "convenient and fit harborough" during a stay in London. A year later he published it as a corner inset to his famous Broadside Map. No place like this exists at Drake's reported anchorage at 38.deg 30.min About 1635, Robert Dudley drew The Map Particolara, and included Porto di Nueva Albion at about 38° 19' In 1790, Captain James Colnett sailed into, and charted, what he called the Port Sir Francis Drake...38° 21' 123° 00' Colnett's plan of the port. See at Google Maps Brian Kelleher studied every detail of Drake's voyage of circumnavigation. He did statistical analysis of all of Drake's determinations of longitude recorded in The World Encompassed. He found that, when taken on land, and from positions that can be identified today on modern maps, that Drake's results were +/- 11 minutes of latitude--quite a feat for the day. The only site that lies within this +/- 11 minutes of latitude of Drake's reported "38.deg 30.min" on the Pacific Coast is Campbell Cove (N38° 19'-- W 123° 03') on Bodega Head (large map above). Brian wrote a book called Drake's Bay, Unravelling California's Great Maritime Mystery. But Brian had never determined the source of Drake's errors in his determinations. Was it error in sightings? Or, were the instruments of the time incapable of doing better? One day Brian asked me, "Bob, why don't you look at the latitude problem." I did, and we were astonished at what we found. There is a passage in the oeuvre of William F. Buckley, Jr.. in which he remarks that no writer in the history of the world has ever successfully made clear to the layman the principles of celestial navigation. Then Buckley announces that celestial navigation is dead simple, and that he will pause in the development of his present narrative to redress forever the failure of the literary class to elucidate this abecedarian technology. John Mc Phee, Annuls of a Former World I am not a Drake Scholar. As you can probably guess from the topbar and other contents of this web site, my main interests lie elsewhere. But I have followed the landing site debates for more than twenty years with interest. So, when Brian suggested it, I decided to look at just where a 16th century determination of North "38. deg. 30. min." at about longitude West 123° would have been. Here is what I found. Let's roll back the calendar to 1579, leave England and sail eight hours in longitude into the next day, and go to these very locations armed with period instrumentation, period astronomical and geographical knowledge, period published tables of solar declination, and re-make these observations ourselves? DETERMINATION OF LATITUDE BY FRANCIS DRAKE ON THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA IN 1579 Copyright © January 1999 by Bob Graham The Library of Congress TX 5-606-271 Many thanks to Dr. Andrew T. Young, Astronomy Department of San Diego State University who visited this website and straightened out some of my terminology and provided me with the rule for the obliquity of the ecliptic. See also my news page on my Frémont site for developements at Campbell Cove! ©1999, 2007 Bob Graham