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In 1596, Barentsz expedition spent winter in a camp on
Novaia Zemlia island. The exact location is known, because the house
they built and remains of their stuff survived.
It is 76d15'5 N, 68d16'2 E, you can see a photo of this home in
Wikipedia on "Barentsz".

Now, I read the detailed account of one participant of this expedition
(de Veer). My impression is that Barentsz (and de Veer) were highly
educated people, and knew everything relevant to navigation which
was available at that time.

They determined their coordinates as 76d N, 87d21' E.
The instruments and tables they used are not described in detail, but
there are all reasons to assume that they were the best available.

And this was not a determination at sea; they had a land observatory,
where they spent almost a year... (Barentsz was in fact the navigator of
the expedition).
I conclude that in the end of XVI century, it was possible to determine
latitude to 10-15 miles, perhaps a bit better.

But the longitude only very approximately, almost useless for navigation.

They used an occultation of the Moon by Jupiter plus dead reconning,
plus some places with "known" longitude.

Perhaps I have to add that the place of their expedition was not
"uninhabited", and Novaia Zemlia was regularly visited by the Russians
at that time. (In fact they helped and saved Barentsz expedition).
But they had no idea of longitude at that time:-)


Alex.

   

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