A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 787 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 787 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17.

N.B.  The observatories were placed on the west side of the village of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Latitude deduced from meridian zenith
  distances of the sun, and of five stars
  to the S., and five to the N. of the
  zenith 53 deg. 0’ 38” N.
Longitude deduced from one hundred
  and forty-six sets of lunar observations 158 43 16 E.
Longitudy by time-keeper, according to
  its Greenwich rate 173 36 0
Longitude by time-keeper, according to
  its rate found at Owhyhee 159 20 0
Variation of the compass, by azimuths
  taken with three compasses, made by
  Knight, Gregory, and Martin 6 18 40 E.
Dip of the North Pole of the magnetic
  needle, being a mean of the observations
  taken in June and September 63 5 0

It was high water, on the full and change of the moon, at thirty-six minutes past four, and the greatest rise was five feet eight inches.  The tides were very regular every twelve hours.  On the coast, near the bay, the flood came from the S., and the time of high water was near two hours sooner than in the harbour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

[35] See all that is known of this voyage, and a chart of discoveries, in
    Mr Coxe’s Account of Russian-Discoveries between Asia and America.  We
    were not able to learn from the Russians in Kamtschatka, a more
    perfect account of Synd than we now find is given by Mr Coxe; and yet
    they seemed disposed to communicate all that they really knew.  Major
    Behm could only inform us, in general, that the expedition had
    miscarried as to its object, and that the commander had fallen under
    much blame.  It appeared evidently that he had been on the coast of
    America, to the southward of Cape Prince of Wales, between the
    latitudes 64 deg. and 65 deg. and it is most probable that his having got too
    far to the northward to meet with sea-otters, which the Russians, in
    all their attempts at discoveries, seem to have principally, in view,
    and his returning without having made any that promised commercial
    advantages, was the cause of his disgrace, and of the great contempt
    with which the Russians always spoke of this officer’s voyage.

The cluster of islands placed in Synd’s chart, between the latitudes of 61 deg. and 65 deg., is undoubtedly the same with the island called by Beering St Laurence’s, and those we named Clerke’s, Anderson’s, and King’s Islands; but their proportionate size, and relative situation, are exceedingly erroneous.

[36] By some strange anomaly in human nature, it would seem as if, in many
    cases, the apprehension of danger is in the inverse proportion of the
    amount of evil to be dreaded, or of the probability of its happening. 

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.