The remaining 361 days the sun is pothering around all over the shop.Man, being more perfect than the sun, makes a clock that keeps regular time.Also, he calculates how far the sun is ahead of its schedule or behind.The difference between the sun's position and the position where the sun ought to be if it were a decent, self-respecting sun, man calls the Equation of Time.Thus, the navigator endeavouring to find his ship's position on the sea, looks in his chronometer to see where precisely the sun ought to be according to the Greenwich custodian of the sun.Then to that location he applies the Equation of Time and finds out where the sun ought to be and isn't.This latter location, along with several other locations, enables him to find out what the man from Kansas demanded to know some years ago.
The Snark sailed from Fiji on Saturday, June 6, and the next day, Sunday, on the wide ocean, out of sight of land, I proceeded to endeavour to find out my position by a chronometer sight for longitude and by a meridian observation for latitude.The chronometer sight was taken in the morning when the sun was some 21degrees above the horizon.I looked in the Nautical Almanac and found that on that very day, June 7, the sun was behind time 1minute and 26 seconds, and that it was catching up at a rate of 14.67 seconds per hour.The chronometer said that at the precise moment of taking the sun's altitude it was twenty-five minutes after eight o'clock at Greenwich.From this date it would seem a schoolboy's task to correct the Equation of Time.Unfortunately, Iwas not a schoolboy.Obviously, at the middle of the day, at Greenwich, the sun was 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time.Equally obviously, if it were eleven o'clock in the morning, the sun would be 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time plus 14.67 seconds.If it were ten o'clock in the morning, twice 14.67 seconds would have to be added.And if it were 8: 25 in the morning, then 3.5 times 14.67 seconds would have to be added.Quite clearly, then, if, instead of being 8:25 A.M., it were 8:25 P.M., then 8.5 times 14.67seconds would have to be, not added, but SUBTRACTED; for, if, at noon, the sun were 1 minute and 26 seconds behind time, and if it were catching up with where it ought to be at the rate of 14.67seconds 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 Iam 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 EASTLONGITUDE TAKE FROM THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC THE ELEMENTS FOR THEPRECEDING DAY."
Then a new thought came to me.I corrected the Equation of Time for Sunday and for Saturday, ****** 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.