This in fact, rather than a precise determination of latitude, would seem to be the object of the statement, taken as a whole. It is as if one were to say, ‘I could breakfast, or shave, by daylight all the year round.’ It by no means follows from the passage that dagmálastad and eyktarstad are meant to be understood as sunrise and sunset; in fact, it would involve an extraordinary coincidence if they were. There were only eight points in general use by which the time of day could be measured or expressed, and to say therefore that the sun was up at a particular time does not indicate that at that precise moment it was on the horizon. Indeed if Rafn had been content with probabilities instead of trying to make the passage support an exact determination of latitude, he would have made out a fairly strong case, so far as eyktarstad was concerned, for the locality which he identified with the explorers’ camp. The chances are that, over a background of wooded and hilly ground, actual sunrise and sunset were invisible, and that the sun was well up at the time of passing over the points recorded. I have calculated roughly the altitude of the sun in eyktarstad at the time in question, and I make out that even so far south as 40° it would not be as much as 5½°. Even assuming that the time of sunset was meant, it would not require any very great unevenness of the horizon to produce the effect of sunset at this point in the latitude supported by Rafn, and it is almost certain that the locality indicated was much nearer to this latitude than to the northern limit of the observation.