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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Translation of latin?
From: Wolfgang Köberer
Date: 2010 Jun 4, 20:58 +0200
From: Wolfgang Köberer
Date: 2010 Jun 4, 20:58 +0200
The
map with the channels to the North Pole and the island marking one magnetic pole
first was an inset in the lower left corner of the famous 1569 Mercator map "ad
usum navigantium". But it doesn't show one magnetic pole but two:
There are 2 smalls circles as you can clearly on the picture
provided by John: one with the inscription "Polus magnetis respectu Corvi
insule", the other is located on a small island with a mountain. Its
inscription reads: "Polus magnetis respectu insularum capitis Viridis".
The first inscription must be translated as: "Magnetic pole with
respect to the island of Corvo", the second as: "Magnetic pole with respect to
the Cape Verde islands".
The
explanation for this is given by Mercator in the 1569 map also:
In the upper right corner of the map there is an inset where
Mercator tries to explain where he starts counting the longitude. Its title
reads: "De longitudinum geographicarum initio et polo magnetis" ("Of the beginning of geographic longitudes
and the magnetic pole"). Here he refers to the fact that supposedly the line of
zero variation passes through the Cape Verde islands, but according to other
authors through the Azores/Corvo. And he states that the longitudes must be
counted from the line of zero variation i.e. either from Corvo or the Cape Verde
islands. And therefore - depending on which place you chose to start counting
the longitude - the magnetic pole is located in different places: as shown on
his arctic maplet.
Regards, Wolfgang