looking for a log of captain cooks voyages in the form of gps coordinates(log/lat)
August 22, 2010 2:21 AM   Subscribe

i am looking for a log of captain cooks voyages in the form of GPS coordinates(log/lat) or similar. like this google user generated map, but with higher resolution if possible.
posted by yosh to Education (9 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, there's a transcript of the logs here.

The entries are fairly formulaic: each paragraph begins with the date, and includes a position in the form "latitude 47 degrees 16 minutes North, longitude 9 degrees 7 minutes West;". If you don't find a table of just the positions, you could try writing a script to extract them programmatically.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 5:18 AM on August 22, 2010


Specifically, if you simply split the text into paragraphs, and apply the regular expression (.+?)\..+?(latitude.+\;) to each, the date and position will be extracted as the first and second captured groups, respectively.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 5:30 AM on August 22, 2010


I've extracted some positions from Chapter 1: here's a tab-delimited file (unfortunately, for some positions, there is only a latitude)
posted by James Scott-Brown at 5:46 AM on August 22, 2010


Once you've got James's tab-delimated file, you can whip up a quick spreadsheet to convert to decimal-degrees longitude,latitude format, copy-and-paste into a KML file then you're ready to go.
posted by Mike1024 at 6:29 AM on August 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I've now uploaded 5 files, describing the England to Rio Janeiro, Rio Janeiro towards Terra Del Fuego, Tahiti to New Zealand, Batvia to Cape of Good Hope, and Cape of Good Hope to England legs of the 1st Voyage.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 7:02 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: James (both of) you are amazing,
a resounding resolved answer
posted by yosh at 8:27 AM on August 22, 2010


Best answer: Saturday, 25th. Moderate Trade Wind and Cloudy weather. Wind North-North-East; course North 50 degrees 15 minutes West; distance 92 miles; latitude 9 degrees 41 minutes North, longitude 28 degrees 30 minutes West.

Sunday, 26th. A Steady Trade and Cloudy Weather. About 1 o’Clock P.M. departed this Life Lieutenant Hicks, and in the Evening his body was committed to the Sea with the usual ceremonys. He died of a Consumption which he was not free from when we sail’d from England, so that it may be truly said that he hath been dying ever since, tho’ he held out tolerable well until we got to Batavia. Wind North-East by North; course North 46 degrees West; distance 92 miles; latitude 20 degrees 47 minutes North, longitude 29 degrees 35 minutes West.

Monday, 27th. A Steady, fresh Trade and Cloudy weather. This day I gave Mr. Charles Clerk an order to act as Lieutenant in the room of Mr. Hicks, deceased, he being a Young Man extremely well qualified for that Station. Wind North-East; course North 39 degrees West; distance 103 miles; latitude 12 degrees 7 minutes North, longitude 30 degrees 40 minutes West.


A little transcription error there I think.

Updated spreadsheet, KML, Google Maps.
posted by Mike1024 at 8:55 AM on August 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


yosh, I hope you'll also mark Mike1024 and James Scott-Brown as "Best Answers." Great effort by each!
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:38 AM on August 22, 2010


Response by poster: done, didn't know i can have two best answers.
thanks again for the detective work and the parsing.
you guys and this community deliver (once again).
posted by yosh at 1:44 PM on August 22, 2010


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