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Baffin says: Most part of this day I spent about finding of the meridian
line; which I did upon an island neere the sea, hanging at the extreames of
my meridian line two threads with plummets set them instead of an index and
sight.

Elsewhere in the journal he mentions his attempts to check compass variation
and the use of a very large quadrant (4 feet in semi-diameter).  I assume
that on 8th July he used the quadrant and the noon sun to gauge the
direction of the meridian, because he finds the compass variation in that
place to be 23 degrees and 28minutes West.

But I am m still baffled by his data from Searles ephemerides. From my
calculations it puts him 60 degrees East of London. Perhaps he misread the
tables but didn't spot the error because the final figure of 60 degrees etc
was reasonably close to where he thought he was.

   

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