Note 461 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

The 19 of February it was faire cleere weather with a south-west wind. Then we tooke the hight of the sunne, which in long time before we could not doe because the horizon was not cleere, as also for that it mounted not so high nor gaue not so much shadowe as we were to haue461 in our astrolabium, and therefore we made an instrument that was halfe round, at the one end462 hauing 90 degrees marked thereon, whereon we hung a third463 with a plumet of lead, as the water compasses464 haue, and therewith we tooke the hight of the sunne when it was at the highest and found that it was three degrees eleuated aboue the horizon, his declination eleuenth degrees and sixteene minutes, which beeing added to the height aforesaid made 14 degrees and 16 minutes, which substracted from 90 degrees, there rested 75 degrees and 44 minutes for the higth of the Pole; but the aforesaid three degrees of higth being taken at the lowest side of the sunne, the 16 minutes might well be added to the higth of the Pole, and so it was just 76 degrees, as we had measured it before.465