East or West & North or South

[toby webb]

Looking at the 1871 census for HMS Cadmus. It is stated to be at sea Longitude 16deg 56'  and
Latitude 69 deg23'. In the northern hemisphere, it appears that this means either near Trinidad or off Bombay. Was there a convention which ties this up without doubt or is there some other reason?
Be glad of some comments. Toby.

[JohninSussex]

Unless you have reversed lat and long, it is somewhere in the Arctic (lat 69N), either off Iceland (16 W) or near Tromsų, Norway (16 E) 

[toby webb]

I consider myself flogged. How careless.
Should be Latitude 16.56 and Longitude 69.23.
T

[JohninSussex]

Good, so back to the original question, a full location should contain the N/S and E/W information as you suggest.  I suppose if the ship always worked a particular route, East Indies or West Indies, the navigator or whoever it was had no need to record the obvious.

In this case it looks like West Indies...
http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=104