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I can’t see how a longcase clock (not a “grandfather” clock prior to the 1870s) would much help because it cannot keep time while moving. They’d still have to determine longitude from some celestial phenomenon such as the motion of the Galilean moons. The sailor’s method is to measure the distance from the Moon to some other object and consult some tables, but surveyors on stable land can do better. From there, you can the set the clock and use it for further observations at your base station. That’s great, but you can also use an ordinary pocketwatch for this. It’s called a “hack” watch, and in typical use aboard a ship, it would be set roughly to match the ship’s chronometer(s), with the exact offset noted, and then it would be used on deck for the brief period of observation. You don’t need chronometer accuracy in the hack watch because it isn’t running freely for days and accumulating error like a chronometer is. A deviation in rate in the parts per ten thousand would be ruinous on a chronometer, but it doesn’t amount to much in the few minutes of observing session. Now I want to look at source to see what they were doing with that clock. Maybe I’m missing something.
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Mar 10, 2022 20:07
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Sweevo posted:I love failed expeditions. The late 19th and early 20th century is full of them - a bunch of toffs decide they're going to explore something and then insist on taking 20 tonnes of useless equipment because they can't understand the idea of maybe not going into the South American rainforest with a formal dining table or their entire drinks cabinet. We can add the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899 to that list too - the organiser was an aristocratic naval officer who ended up captaining a cross-Channel ferry, got bored, wanted to become the next big name in exploration and realised that the Antarctic was the only blank bit of the map. So he bought a Norwegian whaling ship, stuffed it full of other Belgians (not a nation well-served by people with polar experience, but required to sell it to the public as a great patriotic scheme - in the end a number of Norwegians, including a certain Roald Amundsen, were added to the crew) and set out - but not before nearly ramming the Belgian royal yacht as the left port. They inadvertently became the first expedition to over-winter in Antarctica when their ship became stuck in pack ice in the Bellinghausen Sea. Their supplies consisted almost entirely of badly-prepared tinned vegetable soup and low-quality meat stew, all of which was essentially indistinguishable, barely-edible slop. They did stock seal and penguin meat before the winter set in, but de Gerlache forbade the men from eating it because he didn't care for the taste. They'd already lost their expedition cook and his replacement, so the food was the responsibility of de Gerlache's secretary, who knew nothing about cooking. Almost every bit of space on the ship was crammed with coal or stores, forcing the men to live in nearly subterranean conditions, living and sleeping in amongst the crates and piles of equipment. Scurvy quickly became rampant and the entire crew began suffering of a variety of fatigues, anaemia, depression, physical wastage and mental illness. One man went insane and declared that he was leaving the ship two walk back to Belgium. Others became paranoid and tormented by the image of the body of one of their deceased shipmates, who was buried at sea directly under the ice-locked ship.
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Mar 10, 2022 20:35
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I think using Galilean moons as a time indicator was done once for fun and decided it took way too much time and effort. You could actually use lunar distances to set a hack watch if you had a particularly poor chronometer by working in reverse. Chronometers always had superior results vs lunar distances, and on land you had a little more control over errors introduced by movement so land surveyors were very much on the chronometer team. Lunar distances were a close enough for navigation process and most ocean going vessels leaned on chronometers more than lunar distances by the time of Burke and Wills just because the errors in lunar distances were enough to lose distance or beneficial currents even if you're just a ship navigating a milk route. It should be noted the Burke and Wills expedition was politically assembled and hastily outfitted. Wills was ostensibly a surveyor but was almost assuredly not part of any major planning or outfitting decisions as a random Australian peasant and the leader Burke didn't really understand adventuring and surveying to be anything more than a camping trip so it's very possible he just figured it'd be very useful to know the time and well I can get a clock at the general store and we've got 5 wagons so why shouldn't I? E. I think I'm being too hard on Galilean moons. I guess it worked fine on land, but sounds more like a university type measurement needing certain platforms and gimbals for a jovilabe to work in an expedient fashion. zedprime has a new favorite as of 20:51 on Mar 10, 2022 |
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Mar 10, 2022 20:46
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I feel I need to make an important correction regarding the piss shark discussion a few pages back. Piss is not part of the preparation of piss shark meat. The shark meat is pissy as it is. The preparation is fermentation, which makes the piss shark meat a bit more edible. Still pissy, though.
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Mar 10, 2022 21:03
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Gargamel Gibson posted:I feel I need to make an important correction regarding the piss shark discussion a few pages back. Piss is not part of the preparation of piss shark meat. The shark meat is pissy as it is. The preparation is fermentation, which makes the piss shark meat a bit more edible. Still pissy, though. Yeah it's the meat of the native Piss Shark
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Mar 10, 2022 21:44
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Piss is the name of the cook, ackchually.
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Mar 10, 2022 21:52
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Pïß
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Mar 10, 2022 22:09
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BalloonFish posted:We can add the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899 to that list too - the organiser was an aristocratic naval officer who ended up captaining a cross-Channel ferry, got bored, wanted to become the next big name in exploration and realised that the Antarctic was the only blank bit of the map. So he bought a Norwegian whaling ship, stuffed it full of other Belgians (not a nation well-served by people with polar experience, but required to sell it to the public as a great patriotic scheme - in the end a number of Norwegians, including a certain Roald Amundsen, were added to the crew) and set out - but not before nearly ramming the Belgian royal yacht as the left port. If there's one thing the Belgian government is known for, it's mistreatment of hands.
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Mar 10, 2022 22:21
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zedprime posted:Chronometers always had superior results vs lunar distances, and on land you had a little more control over errors introduced by movement so land surveyors were very much on the chronometer team. Everyone wanted to use chronometers because they can be more accurate than the lunar method and they skip a bunch of arithmetic (that could be miscalculated) and table lookups (which were themselves sometimes wrong), but if all you have is a pendulum clock, you’re going to have to pick up time from some external source. Measuring lunar distance with surveying equipment from a rock solid platform helps a little, but still, small imprecisions in angular measurement translate to big errors in time. The fundamental problem is that that the Moon takes a month to cross the celestial sphere. Divide those units, and it’s two minutes of real time for the Moon to change position by one arcminute. A measurement that is off by that amount creates an error in longitude of half a degree, or thirty nautical miles at the Equator. Observing the Galilean moons is impractical aboard a ship, but if you can do it, it’s not subject to the same limitation in precision.
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Mar 11, 2022 03:50
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Did not know so many alchemists were goons 
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Mar 11, 2022 04:15
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One day we will unlock the secret of turning shitposts into gold.
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Mar 11, 2022 04:52
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Marcade posted:One day we will unlock the secret of turning shitposts into gold. TikTok already exists
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Mar 11, 2022 04:54
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canyoneer posted:If there's one thing the Belgian government is known for, it's mistreatment of hands. Lol.
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Mar 11, 2022 07:02
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Platystemon posted:Now I want to look at source to see what they were doing with that clock. Maybe I’m missing something. You can consult Let's Play the Oregon Trail  They made the same luggage decisions
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Mar 11, 2022 09:06
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Sweevo posted:I'd love to know what they were thinking when they decided "yeah we'll definitely need to bring a Chinese gong". Something something, if they get lost, they can ring the gong and make a really loud noise that'll get attention. That or they were secretly hosting a Mortal Kombat tournament.
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Mar 11, 2022 09:27
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Sweevo posted:I'd love to know what they were thinking when they decided "yeah we'll definitely need to bring a Chinese gong". They were explorers and didn't really know what to expect. Who knows, maybe you'll need some device to cause sudden avalanches with sound.
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Mar 11, 2022 09:53
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I'll take the last few pages as proof that Anno 1800s arctic expansion didn't include _enough_ silly decisions.
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Mar 11, 2022 09:55
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Tunicate posted:You can consult Let's Play the Oregon Trail A true classic
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Mar 11, 2022 17:27
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Tunicate posted:You can consult Let's Play the Oregon Trail
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Mar 11, 2022 17:57
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Tunicate posted:You can consult Let's Play the Oregon Trail Is that the one where they forded the Mississippi multiple times?
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Mar 11, 2022 18:12
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zedprime posted:
Yeah as I recall they also brought a dining table, a bath tub and a pile of books with them as well. They also got as far as Essendon on the first day, which isn't a crazy distance if you know melbourne (although the terrain may well have been rougher) but they decided to go back and catch a matinee that evening, so hardened, experienced explorers they weren't.
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Mar 11, 2022 22:00
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CoolCab posted:the polaris expedition is legit one of the funniest things that has ever happened. like, the crew split into three completely irresolvable factions, under the three conflicting captains the expedition also had for some reason, before they made it out of port. before they cleared newfoundland they were openly talking about when they were going to give up and clarifying that if any arctic expeditionary firsts were by some miracle accomplished how they'd make sure to cut that other fucker fake captain out of any credit. they credibly at one point might have conspired to just come back and all pretend they made it, poo poo who could tell otherwise. Oh, it's even better than that. The Polaris itself was a converted US Navy Tug, formally known and as the Periwinkle. The overall leader was a fellow named Charles Francis Hall. Hall was a former newspaper editor in Cincinnati that got bored, abandoned his family and spent a few years in the Arctic living with the Inuit. He did do some good anthropology work and found many Franklin expedition artifacts. Hall is absolutely fascinating, not inexperienced but he rubbed certain people the wrong way. The expedition, including the doctor that killed him, had a shitload of Germans who promptly sealed themselves off from the rest of the crew. Hall somehow lobbied the US Government to provide a ship and money for supplies. Also check out the Greely expedition. A US Army sponsored expedition to work in the International Polar year. They had to hitch a ride to the Arctic. Then the second in command decides he doesn't want to do this and runs back to the ship, missing it by a few hours. When the relief ship cannot get to them because of ice they leave their base and head south, eventually ending up in a spot that they can be rescued from. Robert Todd Lincoln, secretary of war at the time, was ready to leave them to die because the budget was over. Luckily he was over ruled. But before the other relief ship arrives they begin dying from starvation and one soldier is shot for cannibalism. About half made it out. Scott's failed expedition to reach the south pole will always be a good case of the British not listening to anybody and loving it all up. Scott hired a loving Norwegian to teach them how to ski. Then promptly took him to the Antarctic and ignored everything he said. Scott also brought dogs which were used extensively and proved ideal (no poo poo, just like the Norwegians said) but he was wrapped up in the "romance" of man hauling several hundred miles to the Pole. He also brought ponies. They didn't make it far. Nor the motor sledges, which made it about 50 miles from base. Meanwhile Amundsen and crew ski to the Pole with their dogs and ski back. They actually gained weight on the trip.
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Mar 14, 2022 17:04
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The worst thing that happened on the Amundsen expedition was that his camera broke and they had to use an inferior camera that another member of the expedition had brought with him.
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Mar 14, 2022 18:29
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Hav English explorers actually managed to explore anything?
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Mar 14, 2022 20:38
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uh, James Cook
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Mar 14, 2022 20:41
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hawowanlawow posted:uh, James Cook His bones explored Hawaii anyway
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Mar 14, 2022 20:48
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hawowanlawow posted:uh, James Cook What'd he do?
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Mar 14, 2022 20:49
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He was a chef. He discovered cooking
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Mar 14, 2022 21:49
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You are what you eat
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Mar 14, 2022 23:13
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Hav English explorers actually managed to explore anything? Yes, although it often boggles the mind exactly how. I think this account of Scott's first steps on the ice in 1902 gets to the heart of it: David Crane, 'Scott of the Antarctic' posted:There is no journey in polar history except Scott’s last that has generated as much argument as this first Southern Journey. If one looks at a map of Antarctica and traces on it the faint line of their march, an almost imperceptible scratch across the surface of a floating ice shelf the size of France that never once touches land and left its secrets almost as obscure as it found them, it is hard to see why. They had unveiled new coastline, named new mountains, and ‘pushed mankind’s knowledge to the 83rd parallel’, but one might as well try to survey Switzerland from a fogbound rowing boat in the middle of the English Channel as decode continental Antarctica from the Barrier.* For two months Scott and his two companions had marched along the flank of a vast and unbroken chain of mountains that forms the formidable rampart of Antarctica’s polar plateau, and at the end of it all they could scarcely be more certain of what they had seen or the geology of the terrain than they would have been if they had sat out the sledging season in Discovery. In technical terms too – as an exercise in polar travelling – the journey demonstrated all the competence one might expect from a Cheltenham doctor, a merchant officer and a torpedo specialist making their first serious venture on ice. There was no prejudice or unwillingness on any of their parts to experiment or learn, but whether they travelled during the day or night, whether they drove the dogs or gave them a lead, used their skis or travelled on foot, they simply lacked the experience and knowledge to overcome their inexperience. ‘Taken altogether,’ Scott could write after nine weeks on the Barrier – and this of a method that would enable Amundsen to cover twenty-three miles a day across the same surface without extending himself, ‘so far, our ski have been of doubtful value, I much doubt if they have got us any further than we could have managed on our own feet.’
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Mar 14, 2022 23:36
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I wonder how they hosed up the skis. Even someone "taken from a standing forest" will benefit from skis with a few moments' instruction. Maybe they'd tarred the bottoms to make them waterproof. Wouldn't put it past them.
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Mar 14, 2022 23:49
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3D Megadoodoo posted:I wonder how they hosed up the skis. Even someone "taken from a standing forest" will benefit from skis with a few moments' instruction. It was just a complete lack of experience - they took skis on the Discovery Expedition because some people (Norwegians, mostly) had achieved good results with them in the Arctic and Nansen advised Scott to use them. But they took no expert, took no lessons and had no experience of skiing before they set out, which resulted in a load of British naval officers and scientists, none of whom had ever used skis before, trying to teach each other how to use them while in Antarctica for the first time. So unsurprisingly they failed to really get the benefit. They did get better over the course of the expedition but practical experience and a few direct tests showed that, for the British at least, skiing was neither quicker or easier than a man-hauling team. They also completely mismanaged the dogs, having neither the expertise or experience to properly drive a dog team and also feeding them on completely the wrong sort of food (tinned fish, although that was on Nansen's advice against Scott's original plan) which led to the dogs failing and either dying or having to be put down. The experience left Scott with a deep dislike of using sled dogs - partly because of their perceived 'failure' in 1902 but also because he was sentimental about them and didn't want to repeat the experience of dealing with an ailing dog team. He certainly couldn't have been as single-minded as Amundsen was, treating his dogs like a multi-stage rocket and killing the weaker ones to sustain the performance of the remainder to take him to the pole and back. Scott did take a Norwegian skiing expert on the Terra Nova Expedition, but failed to make skiing lessons compulsory and didn't even organise those who could ski to a decent standard into a single team, thus losing any benefit. When he was at the bottom of the Beardmore Glacier, six weeks into his final southern journey and after his motor sledges had all broken and the last of his ponies had been expended and shot, Scott noted in his diary "Skis are the thing, and here are my tiresome fellow countrymen too prejudiced to have prepared themselves for the event" - a very characteristic Scott moment, reaching conclusions (that other people reached hundreds of years before him) only by direct personal experience and also post-hoc shifting the blame to others.
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Mar 15, 2022 00:33
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Was that the one who pissed off his entire crew because he murdered the sled dogs and ship's cat
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Mar 15, 2022 01:03
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Milo and POTUS posted:Was that the one who pissed off his entire crew because he murdered the sled dogs and ship's cat That was Shackleton, who had Mrs. Chippy and three sled dog pups shot after the Endurance was crushed in the ice, on the grounds that they would be too much of a burden on his planned journey across the pack ice, manhauling the ship's boats, to open water. In the event that plan only lasted a few days because progress was so slow and they ended up camping on the ice for several weeks and letting its natural movement carry them north until it began to break up. The ship's carpenter, Harry McNish, never forgave Shackleton for killing his cat and rebelled during the second attempt to drag the boats over the ice. In turn, Shackleton never forgave McNish for his insubordination. McNish's skills were vital to the survival of the entire expedition. He modified two of the lifeboats while they were camped on the ice using scraps of wreckage from the Endurance to increase their carrying capacity and then further adapted the boat that Shackleton would take 800 miles across the Southern Ocean to get help, including fitting an entirely new sailing rig and fitting a deck made from old packing crates, all knocked together on a stony beach on an uninhabited polar island. He was also in the team that Shackleton took in that boat. With the possible exception of the captain of the Endurance, Frank Worsley (with whose navigational skills the expedition may well have been entirely lost in both the geographical and the mortal sense) no single person on the expedition other than Shackleton himself was more essential to its survival and eventual rescue. But McNish was one of only four people out of the 50+ total on Shackleton's expedition not to be awarded the Polar Medal, and Shackleton never referred to McNish by name in his own written account - both acts which most of the other members of the expedition thought was extraordinarily lovely.
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Mar 15, 2022 01:50
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From 1979-1982 Ranulph Fiennes led an expedition to go from London south through Europe and Africa and cross Antarctica and the South Pole, then go north to reach the North Pole and back to London. All by surface travel. They traveled by ship on the ocean parts of the expedition but otherwise used snowmobiles and then an open air boat with an outboard motor when going north to the North Pole until they got iced in and continued on snowmobiles. Supported by airdrops but a neat story https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transglobe_Expedition
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Mar 15, 2022 09:38
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Cat Hassler posted:From 1979-1982 Ranulph Fiennes led an expedition to go from London south through Europe and Africa and cross Antarctica and the South Pole, then go north to reach the North Pole and back to London. All by surface travel. They traveled by ship on the ocean parts of the expedition but otherwise used snowmobiles and then an open air boat with an outboard motor when going north to the North Pole until they got iced in and continued on snowmobiles. Supported by airdrops but a neat story that's like getting sherpas carry you to the top of mt everest
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Mar 15, 2022 09:49
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ChubbyChecker posted:that's like getting sherpas carry you to the top of mt everest Without sherpas no tourist or "explorer" would ever (have) climb(ed) to the top of Mt. Everest. I mean they don't literally literally carry you but you're walking on their shoulders.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:29
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I think they would have gotten there eventually but I agree that maybe 100 percent of the ones who have couldn't without Sherpa help
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Mar 15, 2022 14:02
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Cat Hassler posted:From 1979-1982 Ranulph Fiennes led an expedition to go from London south through Europe and Africa and cross Antarctica and the South Pole, then go north to reach the North Pole and back to London. All by surface travel. They traveled by ship on the ocean parts of the expedition but otherwise used snowmobiles and then an open air boat with an outboard motor when going north to the North Pole until they got iced in and continued on snowmobiles. Supported by airdrops but a neat story Then he went on to portray Voldemort?
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Mar 15, 2022 16:21
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Nth Doctor posted:Then he went on to portray Voldemort? No, but that was his cousin
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