Re: [Paddlewise] stupid natives

From: Robert Livingston <bearboat2_at_comcast.net>
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:59:21 -0700
On Jul 22, 2010, at 1:11 PM, skimmer wrote:

> The hotshot Europeans at the time could not
> tell how far around the globe they were.

Knowing how far around the globe you are  is longitude not latitude.  
This required a very accurate clock which was technically hard to  
achieve.

The Pacific navigators had no way of determining longitude from the  
stars



> At a time when the Europeans had no
> answer, the Pacific navigators new latitude by the north star and by  
> the
> position of other stars at their zenith.

The Europeans knew their latitude just fine
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Received on Tue Jul 27 2010 - 11:14:08 PDT

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