Lewis and Clark
Navigation
Compiled by: Hans A. Heynau
Welcome!
This web site has been created with the goal of aiding those interested
in the navigational aspects of the Lewis and Clark expedition by
providing a development of the calibration approaches and/or procedures used by
the expedition for their astronomical measurement instruments, a transcription of one key expedition reference document, an
annotated reference list, and an annotated list of useful internet
links. Other expedition related navigational items will be added occasionally, so please add this site to your favorites and check back
from time to time.
- Astronomical Instrument Calibration
(Original content by Hans A Heynau)
This page presents the
likely techniques employed by Lewis and Clark to calibrate their various
astronomical observation instruments. The purpose of the presentation
is to document the results of the "detective process" of the author in
understanding the context of the Lewis and Clark astronomical observations
and the calibration processes that likely led to a number of deduced
locations that appear to have systematic errors. By providing this
information, it is hoped that future researchers will be saved the effort of
having to laboriously re-discover these same calibration processes and
effects.
- Astronomical
Notebook (transcription by George Huxtable)
The notebook is the one that was carried by Lewis and contained sight
reduction
procedures created by Robert Patterson of Philadelphia. This
transcription is believed to be the first to be made available on the
web (Pre-posting circulation mid-2002, Final, first posting March 2003)
. The transcription is annotated and/or translated so as to
provide comments and hints relative to Patterson's approach for persons
familiar with modern celestial navigation. Recently, another
transcription became available on the web that, in addition, contains
samples of the original notebook and related letters of the time (see
the "Links" page for the path to this alternate
transcription).
- Links (annotated)
This page provides a list of selected links to pages containing
expedition navigation related information.
- Bibliography
(annotated)
This page provides a selected list of books and articles that contain
expedition navigation related information.