PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



129 



Recapitulating, therefore, we have the following results for the 

 position of the Coast Survey Astronomical Station at Plover Bay : 



Date. 



1848-9 



1866 



Aug., 1869 



July, 1876 



Sept., 1880 



Latitude. 



64 



22 



25-5 

 22 

 21 

 21 



10 



55 

 54 



Longitude. 



173 16 

 16 

 21 

 23 



32 



54 



Authority. 



Com'r T. E. L. Moore. (?) 



Lieut. J. Davison. 



Prof. A. Hall. 



Lieut. M. L. Onatsevich. 



U. S. C. and G. S., by M. Baker. 



Discussion of foregoing Table. 



It is very doubtful whether the results credited to Commodore 

 Moore were really obtained by him, or whether General Sabine 

 took these values from other sources ; while the results by Lieut. 

 Davison are known to have been of only a very approximate char- 

 acter. The three remaining results for latitude, when we consider 

 that they were made at different times, by different observers, at 

 different stations, and with different instruments and the instru- 

 ments of a secondary character, show a satisfactory agreement, and 

 we adopt the simple mean for the latitude determination, which is 

 64° 22' 00" and would assign an arbitrary probable error of 6". 



Neglecting the longitude results by Moore and Davison as being 

 of an inferior character, we have the two remaining by Hall and 

 Onatsevich. The determination by Onatsevich is a chronometric 

 one from Petropavlovsk. How the longitude of Petropavlovsk was 

 obtained we are not informed, but we know it was not determined 

 by telegraph. Moreover the longitude adopted by Onatsevich for 

 Petropavlovsk differs by as much as four miles, (4' 11.7" = 16.8s) 

 from that adopted by the Russian Hydrographic Office, in 1850, as 

 the basis for their charts of this region, and which determination 

 was the mean of nine different determinations extending from 1779 

 to 1827. The longitude of Plover Bay based upon Onatsevich's 

 observations and that longitude of Petropavlovsk is 173° 19' 22" 

 W. Gr. 



It has, therefore seemed best to adopt without change the result 

 of Prof. Hall's observations, not combining it with anything else, 

 viz : 173° 21' 32" ± 6" W. Gr. 

 9 



