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From: frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com <frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com>
Subject: [NavList 7772] Re: Transcription of Worsley's Log
To: NavList@fer3.com
Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 6:52 PM

Brad, you wrote:
"Secondly, neither George nor myself can establish with absolute certainty where he took his observation.  Point Wild is an assumption.  It makes logical sense, as, from their own accounts, it was very difficult to move over land in the Antarctic.  Point Wild was the location of the camp.  Most likely the observation was there but agreed, we can't prove it."

As George points out, while we can't quite "prove" the point of observation, we hardly need to: on that rugged island it's highly unlikely that they travelled anywhere beyond the immediate vicinty of the camp for sights.

You wrote:
"Here is what has occurred to me.  When Worsley wanted to know his DLo to Cape Belsham, he first had to determine WHICH point was Cape Belsham.  It is not like there was a big sign over it, with an arrow saying "Cape Belsham Here".   I have found a map from 1912, a German Stieler map, of the Antarctic Peninsula.  I attach it herein.  While I make no pretense about this being the one that Worsley used, it does offer a suggestion.  Elephant Island was not a highly explored location.  Suppose for a moment, that the prominent Cape that Worsley selected was the one just to the south of Buskin Rocks on the later chart.  That IS about 16 arc minutes away!   If we accept this theory, then all the reductions and chronometer error determinations make sense."

Yes, this is an EXCELLENT idea. When I first looked at the recent chart of Elephant Island and saw that little promontory labeled Cape Belsham, I thought, "odd... not much of a cape!" But the great cusp-like headland that you've noticed does fit that designation a little better.

And you wrote:
"We all look at the modern charts and say, that's Cape Belsham. Its labeled."

Who's this 'all' ?? ;-) Toponyms have a tendency to bounce around when there is no local population to fix them in place. Even when there IS a local population, toponyms sometimes get transferred through misunderstanding or just "common usage".

So where was Cape Belsham supposed to be originally?? Here's a passage from the "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838 to 1842":
"The 7th [of March, 1839] commenced with rain and snow. The wind was light and from the westward; it gradually hauled to the southwestward and blew fresh. While making all way to the northward, the fog lifted, and high land was reported within a short distance of us. A few moments more, and we should have been wrecked. This proved to be Elephant Island. We found from its position that we had been set upwards of fifty miles to the eastward, in the last four days, by the current. We passed to leeward of it. The sea was too high to attempt a landing. In the afternoon it cleared, and from our observations we found Cape Belsham, its EASTERN POINT [my emphasis], well placed. We passed between it and Cornwallis Island. The Seal Rocks were also seen and observed upon.
Elephant Island is high and of volcanic appearance; its valleys were filled with ice and snow."

So unquestionably Cape Belsham has been identified with different spots on Elephant Island over the past 170 years.

You concluded:
"Worsley looked at a pile of rocks under great adversity and (MAYBE) said, Cape Belsham is that large prominent point down the coast, not this pile of little pile rocks."

Yes, I do think you have an excellent hypothesis here. IF his published source of longitudes was not much in error, then if he identified that headland as Cape Belsham, the discrepancy is resolved.

I have one other question for you: is there any possibility that the reference to distance from Cape Belsham is the "point of departure" for the navigation? Does he use the phrase "Cape Belsham, from which we take our departure" (or similar)? I ask because this almost always was done some distance off-shore --from the last spot where the distance to land is considered reliable. I have assumed that this is not the case (that we're talking about the actual observations on shore), but I haven't read through everything you've posted on this.

-FER





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