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Updated: June 3, 2025
A smile of satisfaction slowly dawned on his black and hairy face. Well, anyway, he had made his westing and fooled God. I met him first in a hurricane; and though we had gone through the hurricane on the same schooner, it was not until the schooner had gone to pieces under us that I first laid eyes on him.
To find my eight o'clock' latitude was easy. I had but to subtract 3.5 miles from my noon latitude. All the elements being present, I worked up my longitude. But this was my eight o'clock longitude. Since then, and up till noon, I had made 23.7 miles of westing. What was my noon longitude?
The fair wind which the Concordia fell in with at the mouth of the Thames lasted long enough to carry the ship, not only clear of the Channel, but also well to the westward of Ushant, Captain Roberts having availed himself to the utmost of the opportunity to make as much westing as possible, as his experience had taught him that at that season of the year the prevailing winds which he might expect to meet with to the northward of Madeira would most probably be strong from the south- westward.
And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken faces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silent minute passed. "Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded.
Whatever you do, make westing. When we emerged from the straits in the early afternoon the same steady breeze continued, and in the calm water under the lee of Tierra del Fuego, which extends south-westerly to the Horn, we slipped along at an eight-knot clip. Mr. Pike was beside himself. He could scarcely tear himself from the deck when it was his watch below.
The scowls were for God, and with every chew he reiterated the sole thought of his existence, which was make westing. He was a big, hairy brute, and the sight of him was not stimulating to the other's appetite. He looked upon George Dorety as a Jonah, and told him so, once each meal, savagely transferring the scowl from God to the passenger and back again.
I began to consider whether it would not be advisable, whenever the ice would allow us to move, to sacrifice a few miles of the westing we had already made, and to run along the margin of the floes, in order to endeavour to find an opening leading to the southward, by taking advantage of which we might be enabled to prosecute the voyage to the westward in a lower latitude.
The world wasn't as big around there as at the equator. Therefore, every mile of westing at 19 degrees south was more than a minute of longitude; for sixty miles were sixty miles, but sixty minutes are sixty miles only at the equator. George Francis Train broke Jules Verne's record of around the world. But any man that wants can break George Francis Train's record.
Papa sat still, and I looked over at Jerusalem, where the westing sun was making a bath of sunbeams for the old domes and walls. A sort of promise of glory, which yet touched me exceedingly from its contrast with present condition. Even so of other things, and other places besides Jerusalem. But Melbourne seemed to be in shadow. And Magnolia?
At the same moment the distance recorded on the log was noted. At twelve M., when the sight for latitude was taken. I again noted the log, which showed me that since eight o'clock the Snark had run 24 miles. Her true course had been west 0.75 south. Opposite, in the next two columns, I found that the Snark had made 3.5 miles of southing or latitude, and that she had made 23.7 miles of westing.
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