Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Met
At The Havannah With One Of The Most Able Officers Of The Spanish
Navy, Captain Don Dionisio Galeano, Who Had Taken A Survey Of The
Coast Of The Strait Of Magellan.
We made observations together on a
series of eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter, of which the mean
result gave 5 hours 38 minutes 50 seconds.
M. Oltmanns deduced in 1805
the whole of those observations which I marked for the Morro, at 5
hours 38 minutes 52.5 seconds - 84 degrees 43 minutes 7.5 seconds west
of the meridian of Paris. This longitude was confirmed by fifteen
occultations of stars observed from 1809 to 1811 and calculated by M.
Ferrer: that excellent observer fixes the definitive result at 5
degrees 38 minutes 50.9 seconds. With respect to the magnetic dip I
found it by the compass of Borda (December 1800) 53 degrees 22 minutes
of the old sexagesimal division: twenty-two years before, according to
the very accurate observations made by Captain Sabine in his memorable
voyage to the coasts of Africa, America and Spitzbergen, the dip was
only 51 degrees 55 minutes; it had therefore diminished 1 degree 27
minutes.
The island of Cuba being surrounded with shoals and breakers along
more than two-thirds of its length, and as ships keep out beyond those
dangers, the real shape of the island was for a long time unknown. Its
breadth, especially between the Havannah and the port of Batabano, has
been exaggerated; and it is only since the Deposito hidrografico of
Madrid published the observations of captain Don Jose del Rio, and
lieutenant Don Ventura de Barcaiztegui, that the area of the island of
Cuba could be calculated with any accuracy.
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