Gås­ham­na (Kon­stan­ti­nov­ka)

The wha­lers also left their traces on the east side of Gås­ham­na in shape of piles of migh­ty wha­le­bo­nes. The­se are lying a bit for­got­ten behind a small hill, which draws the atten­ti­on at least initi­al­ly becau­se it is quite obvous­ly a site of major acti­vi­ties in his­to­ri­cal times.

This was the win­tering site of the Rus­si­an sec­tion of the Rus­si­an-Swe­dish Arc-de-meri­di­an expe­di­ti­on: not very famous to the public, but cer­tain­ly a major and very suc­cessful under­ta­king to estab­lish the pre­cise shape of the Earth: a per­fect ball or slight­ly flat­ten­ed on the poles? To find that out, you need to pre­cis­e­ly mea­su­re along a meri­di­an both in low and in high lati­tu­des. Spits­ber­gen was the obvious place to get the lat­ter done. Swe­dish and Rus­si­an sci­en­tists joint their efforts fort his huge task. Both win­tered in 1899-1900. Gås­ham­na is the Rus­si­an site, they took care of the sou­thern part. The Swe­des work­ed in the north, they win­tered at Cro­zier­pyn­ten in Sorg­fjord.

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