NavList:

Ah! but which came first the chicken or the egg?

Or, in this case: is 'Gunwhale Circle' a simple error by whoever wrote the label due to the fact a 'Borda Circle' (so called because of the inventor) has the same name in Portugese? It could be as simple as that.

I think your extrapolation needs further evidence of the use of a term like 'Gunwhale Circle' being in actual use by Portugese sailors contemporaneously with the use of the circle itself in the nineteenth century.

I have come across simple blunders in labelling in museums before where it is obvious the person who wrote the label did not 'know his onions'.

Douglas Denny.
Chichester. England.
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