NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Historical Magnetic Variation/Declination
From: Jim Thompson
Date: 2004 Jun 14, 07:21 -0300
From: Jim Thompson
Date: 2004 Jun 14, 07:21 -0300
Interesting
that:
1.
During all of this period China enjoyed very low magnetic variation 0*-10*, and
that by popular theory this was the first culture to use magnetic
compasses. Connection?
2.
During the 1500's Europe and the Atlantic enjoyed very low variations (down to
zero), when European navigators were taking their first bold oceanic
steps. They needed all the help they could get. given the state of
navigation technnology in those days.
3.
During the great European expansion periods of the 1700's and 1800's much
of the USA, southern Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia also had relatively low
variations (0* - 20*), except for a time in the north Atlantic at the end of the
1700's for several decades when variations were quite high. Must be a
story there. Good thing that by then celestial navigation was
improving. I can only imagine how easy it would have been to get off
course during those decades in the north Atlantic with variation so
large and changing year to year relatively rapidly, but how easy it would have
been to use a compass to travel by land and sea over many other regions
where economy spurred history.
Jim
Thompson
jim2@jimthompson.net
www.jimthompson.net
Outgoing mail scanned
by Norton Antivirus
-----------------------------------------
