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Brad, you wrote:
"The constant 7915.704468 may be wrong."

Heh. It also may be a little more precise than required. :-)

Andres wrote up a nice post with the mathematical details on the oblate Earth 
three years ago. It's here: http://www.fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=031096

Say, have you noticed that the ratio of one nautical mile to one statute mile 
happens to be almost exactly equal to ln(10)/2? Just a fun coincidence. It's 
why the constant you list above is almost equal to the diameter of the Earth 
in statute miles.

Incidentally, you've mentioned an 1849 Bowditch a couple of times. You 
probably said so somewhere, but I gather this is an edition you own? There 
are some other historical editions available online. See the list here: 
http://www.fer3.com/mystic2008/navbooks1.html. For your Worsley analysis, 
despite the fact that it's already largely finished, you may find some value 
in the 1906 and 1914 Bowditch editions (to save you the trouble, they do not 
include position information for Elephant Island).

-FER



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