the correftnefs o f that method, which fhould be reforted to, whenever
better authority cannot be had.
The above true longitude, latitude, variation, and inclination of the
marine dipping needle, were found to correfpond with our obfervations
made on our former vilit to this place in december, 1792.
CHA PTER
C H A P T E R III.
Leave Monterrey— Some account o f the three Marias iflands Proceed to
the fouthward— Aßronomical and nautical obfirvaiions.
. * 794' T h e method that had been purfued to preferve as great a regularity as December,
was poffible in the rate of the chronometers, had fo far fucceeded with No. ' * '
14, that its rate as afcertained at Nootka and at Monterrey, differed only
54^; this made me very anxious to fall in with fome place whofe longitude
had been fettled by profeffed aftronomers, by which means the accuracy
of our calculations would be Confirmed, or the error they might have
been liable to, would by fuch companion become apparent; leaving it at
the difcretion o f geographers, or óf thofe who might hereafter follow us, to
adopt or fejeft fuch corre&iori as their own judgment might direft. For
this purpofe, no ftation appeared to me to be fo eligible as cape St. Lucas,
at the fouth extremity of the peninfula of California, (on a moderate
computation not more than eight or ten days fail from Monterrey,) as at
St. Jofeph’s, in the immediate neighbourhood of that promontory, the
tranfit of Venus had been obferved, and other aftronomical obfervations
had been made by profeffors in that fcience, whence its pofitive fituation
had been correHly determined. But as our obfervations during the preceding
autumn for fixing the longitude of the coaft of New Albion, fouthward
from hence to the 30th degree of north latitude, had been all reduced
to port St. Diego as a central ftation, and the rate of the chronometers
for correfling thatPurvey had been there afcertained; I deemed it
expedient to fleer firft for the ifland of Guadaloupe, for the purpofe of examining
whether the fituation we had before affigned to that ifland from
X x 2 'he