xxxiv Astronomical and Meteorological Records^ ^c. 



Oct. 18, 1820. 



Meridian double altitude of 

 sun's lower limb 



Index error + 23". Lat deduced 



Latitude of Cape Girardeau by a mean of the 

 above observations ... 



85° 17' 40" 



17 18 31 N. 



37 18 39 N. 



I had, about the middle of October, observed a series of equal alti- 

 tudes of the sun for determining the error and rate of the chrono- 

 meter, with a view to ascertain the longitude by the eclipses of Jupi- 

 ter's satellites, several of which I found would occur during my stay 

 at this'place. I had on the nights of the 14th and 20th prepared the 

 telescope to observe emersions of the first and second satellites, but 

 had the mortification to be baffled in my designs in both instances by 

 Jupiter's becoming obscured by clouds before the time for tlie emer- 

 sions to take place. For some time after my arrival here, I was un- 

 able to make observations of any kind, owing to the debilitated state 

 to which I was reduced by a severe attack of bilious remitting fever, 

 which harassed me the greater part of two months previous. 



From astronomical observations made by the late professor Andrevir 

 Ellicott, in 1796-7, connected with others which were afterwards 

 made by Don Jose Joaquin de Ferrer, a Spanish astronomer, the lon- 

 gitude of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers is fixed at 

 5" 55' 38".l or 88° 54' Sl|" W. of Greenwich;* and by a traverse 

 of part of the Mississippi made by Major S. H. Long of the United 

 States' Topographical Engineers, in 1817, Cape Girardeau is laid 

 down 22' 28i" W. of the mouth of the Ohio. By connecting the po- 

 sitions in longitude of these two points, we shall obtain for the lon- 

 gitude of Cape Girardeau 89° 17' W. of Greenwich, which probably 

 deserves as much confidence as a single observation made at the Cape 

 would be entitled to. 



Observations for Latitude made in the old Spanish Fort at J^atchez, 



Nov. 20, 1820. 



Meridian double altitude of 

 sun's upper limb 



Index error — 4'. Latitude 

 deduced 



77'' 52' 20" 



31 33 45 N. 



The position of this place, both in latitude and longitude was ac- 

 curately determined by the late professor Ellicott in 1797-8, while 

 acting as our conimissioner for determining the boundary between the 

 United States and the Spanish Possessions in North America. By 

 twenty-three observations of the zenith distances of three stars made 

 with a zenith sector, the face of the sector being sometimes to tJie 

 east and sometimes to the west, he obtained for the latitude 31° 33' 

 48" N. It is perhaps the best method of testing the accuracy of in- 



• ElUcott's Journal, p. 119, Philadelphia, 1803. 



