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LONGCAMP.COM'S
NOVA ALBION ANNEX
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
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See also my news
page on my Frémont site for developements at
Campbell Cove!
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