XVI. A comparison of barometrical measurement, with the trigonometrical determination of a height at Spitzbergen
The hill selected for the comparative measurement was, as far as could be judged, the highest, within convenient distance, of which the ascent was practicable, being rather above the general height of the hills on the western part of the north coast of Spitzbergen; the summit was distant less than...
| Published in: | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The Royal Society
1824
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1824.0019 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstl.1824.0019 |
| Summary: | The hill selected for the comparative measurement was, as far as could be judged, the highest, within convenient distance, of which the ascent was practicable, being rather above the general height of the hills on the western part of the north coast of Spitzbergen; the summit was distant less than two miles from the Observatory on the Inner Norway Island, in a direction very nearly due south, as the mark, which was placed to determine the point of measurement, was within the field of the meridian transit instrument: the hill was situated on the main land, and was divided from the island on which the Observatory was established, by a sea channel of little more than a mile across, making part of the harbour of Fair-haven. The annexed sketch of the harbour and of the adjacent coast will be sufficient to point out the positions of the hill and of the Observatory, and is the more necessary, as the plan of Fair-haven, published in Captain Phipps’s Voyage, (in which an endeavour might otherwise be made to trace them,) is so exceedingly inaccurate though purporting to be from actual survey, that after having been nearly three weeks on the spot, I am even more perplexed than on the day of arrival, to assign in the plan, the island which is intended to represent the one on which the Observatory is placed, or the position of the hill in question the latter, I apprehend must have been designed either by the one marked ( a ) in Captain Phipps's, (or rather in Mr. D’Auvergne's) plan, or by that marked f , although neither corresponds, even within ordinary limits, in height, or in relative position. The present sketch, Plate XIII. is taken principally from a manuscript survey of Captain Beechey's, when at Spitzbergen as a Lieutenant in Captain Buchan's expedition of 1818; Captain Beechey's Survey has been found remarkably correct wheresoever we have had an opportunity of verifying it. The shore of the main land to the north eastward of the hill forms a small bay, which being frozen over, afforded a perfectly level base, ... |
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