Arthur Carlson wrote: > What I still don't understand is this: Even without an exact measurement of > the longitude, how could Cabrillo still think it was only a hop, skip, and a > jump from Mexico to Asia 20 years after Magellan had taken 4 months to cross > the Pacific? Magellan was sailing for Spain, so the knowledge of the rough > size of the Pacific must have been available to Cabrillo (as if you could > keep such a story secret anyway).
Art Since my knowledge about History is poor, to say the least. About navigation I'd better keep my mouth shut. But, can I do that? Certainly not! :-) I see many possibilities. First, Magellan himself may not have had a good idea about how far the distances were. He could find latitude very easily, but he couldn't measure longitude. Not being able to measure longitude, he couldn't find he real speed either. He certainly could find his speed at any moment given, but by the end of the day he could only guess how long he had travelled westwards. I would guess that in that trip making mistake of 5000 or 10000 miles could go unoticed (at least for a long while). On the other hand, navigational skill was quite a valuable skill. Information about the oceans and routes were kept under seven keys. I would not be surprised to find that the information about the circumnavigation was kept as secret (at least the details) for a long, long time. Cabrillo could me misinformed because he was not good enough. Or just because the Portuguese wanted the Spaniards to be misinformed. Now that I've said a lot of things about things I know nothing, may I suggest Slawek to come in and clarify this for good. - fernando -- Fernando Cabral Padrao iX Sistemas Abertos mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pix.com.br Fone Direto: +55 61 329-0206 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] PABX: +55 61 329-0206 Fax: +55 61 326-3082 15º 45' 04.9" S 47º 49' 58.6" W 19º 37' 57.0" S 45º 17' 13.6" W
