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Updated: June 23, 2025
Mr Thudicumb again looked at his watch. "There he is, sir," he exclaimed at length. He and the captain stopped in their walk; their sextants were quickly at their eyes; and there they stood, their feet planted firmly on the heaving deck, in an attitude long practice alone could have enabled them to maintain.
It was richly paneled in leather, with much gilding, the draperies were of crimson damask, and the seat which followed the window's swell was cushioned in crimson plush, all of which gave it a snug, shut-in look. A large table with a constant litter of maps, charts, sextants, log-books, pipes, and tobacco jars, occupied the center, and comfortable chairs were placed around in careless order.
He was talking boisterously, and heaping his sea-boots and sextants back into his chest. "And you really think, my dear friend, of hoisting your pennant again?" "My pennant, Walker? No, no. Her Majesty, God bless her, has too many young men to need an old hulk like me. I should be plain Mr. Hay Denver, of the merchant service.
At daylight we had neared the schooner, by the sextants, about a quarter of a mile, and the captain and officers went down to take some repose and refreshment, not having quitted the deck for twenty-four hours.
Mr Henley and I, and Mr Waller, had been watching to take observations after the captain and mate had broken their sextants, but we had not been able to ascertain our position with the exactness we wished; and the second mate thought the ship might have been set by some current to the eastward of her course.
This we do by means of our quadrants, or sextants; for, as the sun is always in the zenith at twelve o'clock, nothing is easier than to do this, when the sun can be seen, and an arc of the heavens measured. At the instant the height of the sun is ascertained by one observer, he calls to another, who notes the time on the chronometer.
He recognised the importance of rigidity in the instruments, and, whereas these had generally been made of wood, he designed them in metal. His instruments included armillae like those which had been used in Alexandria, and other armillae designed by himself sextants, mural quadrants, large celestial globes and various instruments for special purposes.
But even our sextants failed to settle the question, for if there was any difference at all in the angle, it was too minute for detection, and we were left in almost the same state of suspense as before.
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