Minute and 26 seconds behind time, and if it
were catching up with where it ought to be at the rate of 14.67
seconds per hour, then at 8.25 P.M. it would be much nearer where it
ought to be than it had been at noon.
So far, so good. But was that 8:25 of the chronometer A.M., or
P.M.? I looked at the Snark's clock. It marked 8:9, and it was
certainly A.M. for I had just finished breakfast. Therefore, if it
was eight in the morning on board the Snark, the eight o'clock of
the chronometer (which was the time of the day at Greenwich) must be
a different eight o'clock from the Snark's eight o'clock. But what
eight o'clock was it? It can't be the eight o'clock of this
morning, I reasoned; therefore, it must be either eight o'clock this
evening or eight o'clock last night.
It was at this juncture that I fell into the bottomless pit of
intellectual chaos. We are in east longitude, I reasoned, therefore
we are ahead of Greenwich. If we are behind Greenwich, then to-day
is yesterday; if we are ahead of Greenwich, then yesterday is to-
day, but if yesterday is to-day, what under the sun is to-day! - to-
morrow? Absurd! Yet it must be correct. When I took the sun this
morning at 8:25, the sun's custodians at Greenwich were just arising
from dinner last night.
"Then correct the Equation of Time for yesterday," says my logical
mind.
"But to-day is to-day," my literal mind insists. "I must correct
the sun for to-day and not for yesterday."
"Yet to-day is yesterday," urges my logical mind.
"That's all very well," my literal mind continues, "If I were in
Greenwich I might be in yesterday. Strange things happen in
Greenwich. But I know as sure as I am living that I am here, now,
in to-day, June 7, and that I took the sun here, now, to-day, June
7. Therefore, I must correct the sun here, now, to-day, June 7."
"Bosh!" snaps my logical mind. "Lecky says - "
"Never mind what Lecky says," interrupts my literal mind. "Let me
tell you what the Nautical Almanac says. The Nautical Almanac says
that to-day, June 7, the sun was 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time
and catching up at the rate of 14.67 seconds per hour. It says that
yesterday, June 6, the sun was 1 minute and 36 seconds behind time
and catching up at the rate of 15.66 seconds per hour. You see, it
is preposterous to think of correcting to-day's sun by yesterday's
time-table."
"Fool!"
"Idiot!"
Back and forth they wrangle until my head is whirling around and I
am ready to believe that I am in the day after the last week before
next.
I remembered a parting caution of the Suva harbour-master: "IN EAST
LONGITUDE TAKE FROM THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC THE ELEMENTS FOR THE
PRECEDING DAY."
Then a new thought came to me. I corrected the Equation of Time for
Sunday and for Saturday, making two separate operations of it, and
lo, when the results were compared, there was a difference only of
four-tenths of a second. I was a changed man. I had found my way
out of the crypt. The Snark was scarcely big enough to hold me and
my experience. Four-tenths of a second would make a difference of
only one-tenth of a mile - a cable-length!
All went merrily for ten minutes, when I chanced upon the following
rhyme for navigators:
"Greenwich time least
Longitude east;
Greenwich best,
Longitude west."
Heavens! The Snark's time was not as good as Greenwich time. When
it was 8 25 at Greenwich, on board the Snark it was only 8:9.
"Greenwich time best, longitude west." There I was. In west
longitude beyond a doubt.
"Silly!" cries my literal mind. "You are 8:9 A.M. and Greenwich is
8:25 P.M."
"Very well," answers my logical mind. "To be correct, 8.25 P.M. is
really twenty hours and twenty-five minutes, and that is certainly
better than eight hours and nine minutes. No, there is no
discussion; you are in west longitude."
Then my literal mind triumphs.
"We sailed from Suva, in the Fijis, didn't we?" it demands, and
logical mind agrees. "And Suva is in east longitude?" Again
logical mind agrees. "And we sailed west (which would take us
deeper into east longitude), didn't we? Therefore, and you can't
escape it, we are in east longitude."
"Greenwich time best, longitude west," chants my logical mind; "and
you must grant that twenty hours and twenty-five minutes is better
than eight hours and nine minutes."
"All right," I break in upon the squabble; "we'll work up the sight
and then we'll see."
And work it up I did, only to find that my longitude was 184 degrees
west.
"I told you so," snorts my logical mind.
I am dumbfounded. So is my literal mind, for several minutes. Then
it enounces:
"But there is no 184 degrees west longitude, nor east longitude, nor
any other longitude. The largest meridian is 180 degrees as you
ought to know very well."
Having got this far, literal mind collapses from the brain strain,
logical mind is dumb flabbergasted; and as for me, I get a bleak and
wintry look in my eyes and go around wondering whether I am sailing
toward the China coast or the Gulf of Darien.
Then a thin small voice, which I do not recognize, coming from
nowhere in particular in my consciousness, says:
"The total number of degrees is 360.
