Question

I have come into the possession of the treasure map above which is said to have been in the possession of Captain William Kidd, a 17th century Scottish sailor who was tried and executed for piracy. There are two very faint handwritten notes on the map: 41 degrees, 5 minutes and 72 degrees, 7 minutes. No other notes can be discerned. Briefly describe two aspects of these coordinates that will make it difficult to find the location of the treasure.

Answer 1

Precision and not knowing which is latitude and which longitude

Step-by-step explanation:

Precision:

A degree is roughly equivalent to 111 km, therefore, a minute would be 1.11 km, this means that by just knowing Degrees and minutes and not seconds, the precision would be about 1 km, which is very far from a high accuracy location.

Latitude or Longitude?

There is no way of knowing which number refers to Latitude and which to longitude, and also, there is no indication whether it is West or East for longitude and North or South for Latitude.

For example, both 41 degrees latitude and 41 degrees longitude exist: 41 degrees latitude can be located in the 41° North crossing North America, or 41° South crossing South of Argentina.