“In the first place, then, I have Kingsmill island time; my watch was last set, one day while we were there, just after Mr Frazer had taken an observation.”
“Do you mean to say,” inquired I with some interest, “that you have regularly wound up your watch every day since then, without once forgetting or neglecting it during all that has since occurred?”
“I did regularly, every night before sleeping; and during all the time that we were at sea in the boat, hardly a day passed that I did not note down some memoranda in my pocket-book.”
“That now, is positively diabolical!” exclaimed Max, from his covert among the creepers, where he was completely invisible, except his heels, which were kicking in the air; “I wouldn’t have believed, Arthur, that you were such a methodical, cold-blooded creature! I suppose now, that if I had tumbled overboard during that hideous time, and been gulped down by a shark, or if Shakespeare had starved to death, you would have made a regular memorandum of the event, in business-like style, and wound up your watch as usual. I think I see the entry in your pocket-book, thus: ‘1839, June 3rd—Mem. Max Adeler fell overboard this day, and was devoured by a shark—an amiable and interesting youth, though too much given to levity, and not prepared, I fear, for so unexpected a summons. June 5th—Mem. My worthy and estimable friend, John Browne, late of Glasgow, Scotland, died this day, from lack of necessary food. Threw him overboard. What startling monitions of the uncertainty of life!’”
“Peace, Kaiser Maximilien, peace!” cried Browne, “and let the Professor proceed to fix our longitude.”
“The first thing,” resumed Arthur, “is to plant a straight stick upright in the ground; when it casts no shadow east or west it is twelve o’clock here. My watch will then show what time it is at the Kingsmills: if it shows an earlier hour there, we must be east of them; if a later hour, then we are west of them.”
“I think I understand that,” said Johnny; “the next thing is to tell how far east or west we are.”
“That is quite easy. There are, you know, three hundred and sixty degrees of longitude: the sun passes through them all—that is, round the globe in twenty-four hours. Then, of course, in one hour, it passes through fifteen degrees, and through one degree in four minutes; so that for every four minutes’ difference of time, there will be a difference of longitude of one degree—that is, near the equator, about seventy miles.”
“It must be very near noon now,” said Johnny, running out into a patch of sunshine, where a small opening in the grove let in the light, “see! I have hardly any shadow at all.”
Arthur planted a stick in the ground, and as soon as the shadow marked the hour of noon, looked at his watch, by which it was eighteen minutes after twelve.