"Why, like this, dad," explained Bob. "We knew there were 360 degrees to the world; we divided the circumference of 24,899 miles by 360, and obtained approximately 69.5 miles to a degree. By taking a map of the world and finding the number of degrees between any two airports it was not difficult to come pretty close to the actual distance in miles between them."
"Very good; very good, indeed," approved his father. "I think I have the right sort of men on this job. But here is another thing which occurs to me: Have you based your time of arrival and leaving at each port upon local time or New York time?"
"Local time," stated Paul. "If we had not done so we could not have arranged the schedule with any accuracy at all, as regards daylight and darkness and the lapping of time. With our watches set to New York time, we might expect to land at a station in broad daylight, only to find that we were really coming in after dark. Another thing: Our figuring showed us that the lappages of time, all added together, exactly totaled one day of twenty-four hours, which we gain by traveling eastward. So, while the schedule on a calendar at home would only show ten days which we would be gone, we would in reality be away one day longer, or eleven."
"Your local times may be wrong," hinted Mr. Giddings.
"I don't think so, sir; we proved them correct," stated Paul, with conviction.
"How?"
"After the same method we used in getting the mileage, sir. You see, we knew that time eastward keeps getting later, and that this rate is four minutes to every degree. We just counted the degrees between places and figured it out on that basis."
"Splendid!" exclaimed Mr. Giddings, who was far from as ignorant of these processes as he led his visitors to suppose. "Boys, I wish to compliment you very highly upon this piece of work. When I first looked at the schedule and saw that an airplane meeting its requirements would make this trip squarely around the world in seven and a half hours less than ten days I could scarcely credit my senses, and I figured it all over to make sure you had made no mistake. I found out you had not. If you can maintain an average speed of one hundred and twenty miles, and can make up any unforeseen delays by greater speed, I must admit it really looks possible for you to be back inside of ten days. That is better than I actually hoped for, young men,—far better! In fact the situation, as I view it, contains wonderful opportunities for both newspapers in the way of sales and advertising. I do not doubt but that I can handle this affair in such a manner that I can afford to give each of you five thousand dollars if you make the journey within these ten days."
"Five thousand dollars!" cried our friends in unison, while Bob exploded: "But, dad, just how do you figure this out?"
"Mr. Wrenn and I will exploit this contest in our newspapers—let the whole universe know that it is coming off; advise the people that the aviators are to be provided with the most modern airplanes, and equipped with wireless by means of which they will keep us informed frequently of their whereabouts; that they will have cameras and send us pictures; that these bulletins shall be issued in extra editions of our newspapers at least three or four times a day; and to cap the climax, we will put up large bulletin boards in front of our buildings, on which there will be painted a chart of the trip, showing every scheduled stop, country, and ocean crossed. This will be electrically lighted at night, and as you boys fly in your machine away off in some distant part of the world, our bulletin board operators will follow your course on their huge charts, and represent you with a miniature airplane. In fact, I plan to get the Clarion to 'phone over reports of their crew as fast as received, I doing likewise with them, and then we can have two dummy airplanes on each of our boards, showing the race in earnest at all stages of the journey. This would cause great excitement to the street onlookers. All in all, it would make our newspapers the most talked about in the whole country, we would gain thousands of new subscribers, millions of extras would be sold, thousands of dollars' worth of new advertising contracts could be made, and our present rates increased on account of our new prestige. Now, you see, it will be up to you young men to keep our office supplied with your whereabouts as often as you can. Do that, and beat our rival crew, and I shall be pretty well satisfied if you don't quite make the trip in ten days."