Theater of the World by Thomas Reinertsen Berg

Author:Thomas Reinertsen Berg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

THE FLAGSTAFF | The town of Kongsvinger is situated along one of the few easily accessible roads between Norway and Sweden–that which runs from Oslo to Magnor and Eda, and from there into the gently rolling landscape of Värmland. Construction of the fortifications here was started in 1673 to secure the ferry landing on the River Glomma and the surrounding areas against Swedish troops. In the summer of 1779, the two lieutenants Johan Jacob Rick and Ditlev Wibe arrive in Kongsvinger to put the town on the map. ‘The survey shall hereafter be supported by astronomically determined points […]. Lieutenants Rick and Wibe have therefore been trained by Professor Bugge in Copenhagen and shall take over this work,’ wrote General von Huth.

Using the cutting-edge new instruments they have brought with them from Copenhagen–two surveyor’s transits used to measure the angle from one point to another, two pendulum clocks and two seven-foot-long telescopes–the lieutenants perform the necessary astronomical calculations to find out the exact latitude and longitude of their current position. The fortress’s flagstaff will have the honour of marking Norway’s prime meridian. The light summer nights make celestial observations difficult, but they manage to calculate a latitude for the flagstaff of around 60 degrees, 12 minutes and 11 seconds north based on observations of the clearest stars and the movements of the Sun. On 14 June, they observe the time of a solar eclipse in order to determine the longitude. Throughout the autumn, however, they struggle with bad weather, which prevents them from observing a single lunar eclipse of the stars or eclipse of Jupiter’s moons, and they therefore never obtain a good enough basis on which to establish an astronomically calculated prime meridian. Their observations and the baseline they established through the use of smoke signals and by taking measurements across the ice do, however, provide them with enough information to undertake further observations across the country. And now they must move northwards.

Equipped with a large officers’ tent, two smaller tents for assistants, four canteens, four metal pots with lids, four saddlebags containing provisions and a pass that entitles them to free transport with the local farmers, the lieutenants set out on their journey north. From 1779 to 1784, during the summer months, Rick and Wibe measure the latitudes and longitudes of a broad range of mountaintops and church spires as they construct an increasing network of triangles along the border, erecting small observatories where no appropriate premises in which to set up their instruments can be found.

During the winters, they make observations at Halden, Oslo, Kristiansand and Copenhagen to find the latitude and longitude values at each of these locations, and establish new baselines on frozen lakes to avoid minor errors becoming magnified as they work. In January 1781, they measure a six-kilometre-long line across the Osensjøen lake, in March the same year a seven-kilometre-long line across Mjøsa, the following year a seven-kilometre-long line at Femunden and in 1785 a final line at Jonsvatnet, south-east of Trondheim. Their

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