Survey of Northeast Greenland. 251 
to compute a correction factor for the Besslian refraction. But they 
knew that an agreement of this kind would be illusory, because it 
could neither be brought to harmonize with CLAVERING's map nor 
with the site of the ruins of houses which they must necessarily 
know. (We will later on recur to the doubtful justice of the above 
attempt to determine the mutual position of SABINE's Observatory in 
1823 and of the Observatory of the Germaniaexpedition in 1870 by 
re-computing the observations of SABINE). 
As mentioned above, the determination of longitude of the Ger- 
maniaexpedition have a mean error of about 124 metres. SABINE’S 
determination of longitude is the result of 
12 moon culminations (transit instrument)... 18°49'42” west of Grw. 
110 moon distances (sextant, artificial horizon). .18°50'12”.6 — — 
Mean... 18°4957”.3 
SABINE’s determination of longitude may be supposed to suffer 
from a similar uncertainty as that of the Germaniaexpedition. 
Building upon the indication of PAYER as to the site of 
SABINE's Observatory, WEGENER has computed the discrepancy between 
the two determinations of longitude at 260 metres; but BORGEN and 
COPELAND cannot have believed in PAyER’s indication, for in that 
case they would themselves have drawn attention to the discrepancy 
which might at a pinch be explained through the uncertainty of the 
determinations of longitude. BORGEN and COPELAND have naturally 
kept sılent,; as 100015 matter,‘ because they could not 
descry any possibility of a reasonable explanation, and 
because they would not cast unwarranted doubt on SABINE's 
observations, or those they had made themselves. 
How thoroughly the members of the Germaniaexpedition have 
discussed this matter in all its bearings, and how eagerly they have 
looked for possibilities of reconciling conflicting points appears clearly 
from the passage quoted above from the official report of the Ger- 
maniaexpedition as well as from the slight alteration in SABINE's “a 
spot which had been the site of an Esquimaux village was found 
for the pendulums”, which became “dass das Gebäude nahe bei 
den Eskimohütten gestanden hat”. The word “nahe” which is un- 
warranted in SABINE, and which opens the door to unlimited possi- 
bilities of placing the site of SABINE's Observatory is hardly a casual 
alteration of the text. Very illustrative in this respect is also the 
account in “Die zweite deutsche Nordpolfahrt”, Bd. I, р. 597, of the 
importance assigned to the find of half of the bottom of a beer 
