. Narrative of the Arctic land expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835 [microform]. Scientific expeditions; Expéditions scientifiques. 116 JOUllNEY TO THE SHORES. M 'U .]* Journal, whereby he discovered so great a discrepancy be- tween the outward and homeward journeys as caused him to reject the higher latitudes altogether, or greatly to reduce them; and, in doing so, he was undoubtedly right, though Hearne complains bitterly in his preface of the injustice done to him. The fact is, that, when we consider the h
. Narrative of the Arctic land expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835 [microform]. Scientific expeditions; Expéditions scientifiques. 116 JOUllNEY TO THE SHORES. M 'U .]* Journal, whereby he discovered so great a discrepancy be- tween the outward and homeward journeys as caused him to reject the higher latitudes altogether, or greatly to reduce them; and, in doing so, he was undoubtedly right, though Hearne complains bitterly in his preface of the injustice done to him. The fact is, that, when we consider the hardships which Hearne had to endure, the difiicult circumstances in which he was frequently placed, the utter insufficiency of his old and cumbrous Elton's quadrant as an instrument for as- certaining the latitude, particularly in the winter, with a low meridian sun, and a refraction of the atmosphere greatly beyond what it was supposed to be by the best observers of the period, and the want of any means of estimating the longitude, except by dead reckoning; this reckoning requiring an exact appreciation of distances, as well as correct courses, circumstances evidently unattainable by one accompanying an Indian horde in a devious march through a wooded and mountainous country; we shall not be inclined to view with severity the errors committed, but rather to think that the traveller's credit would have been strengthened and not im- paired by his acknowledging the uncertainty of the position of the places most distant from Churchill. Unfortunately, however, Hearne himself thought differently; and in his published narrative, which did not appear until twenty years after the completion of his journey, he attempts to establish the correctness of his latitudes by various unfounded asser- tions; one of which it will be sufficient to notice here. He states that on the 21st of July, "though the sun's declination was then but 21°, yet it was certainly some height above the horizo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, booksubjectscientificexpeditions, bookyear1836
