The Supposed Westward Drift of Greenland

Abstract

It has been brought to our notice that in a recent paper (Astronomical Longitude and Azimuth Observations, Monthly Notices of tlie Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 97, No. 7, 1937, p. 489) Professor Nørlund, the Director of the Danish Geodetic Survey, made the following remarks about the supposed westward drift of Greenland:“We know that Wegener considered that his hypothesis of the displacement of the continents had been supported by longitude determinations in Greenland, and from them he calculated that Greenland is moving westwards about 2O.metres a year. But the old observations used by Wegener were carried out with primitive instruments and he overrated their exactitude. In 1927 and 1936 the Danish Geodetic Survey carried out longitude determinations at Qôrnoq on the west coast of Greenland with a first class transit instrument, both times on the same pillar. Practically speaking the two measurements gave the same result. It is most likely that the deviations of the old measurements from the new ones are the result of observational errors.”