their starting-point for longitudes concurrently with the
English--it followed that the island must be situated seventy-seven and
seventy-five degrees west of the meridian of Greenwich, that is to say,
on the hundred and fifty-second degree of west longitude.

Cyrus Harding announced this result to his companions, and taking into
consideration errors of observation, as he had done for the latitude, he
believed he could positively affirm that the position of Lincoln Island
was between the thirty-fifth and the thirty-seventh parallel, and
between the hundred and fiftieth and the hundred and fifty-fifth
meridian to the west of the meridian of Greenwich.

The possible fault which he attributed to errors in the observation was,
it may be seen, of five degrees on both sides, which, at sixty miles
to a degree, would give an error of three hundred miles in latitude and
longitude for the exact position.

But this error would not influence the determination which it was
necessary to take. It was very evident that Lincoln Island was at such a
distance from every country or island that it would be too hazardous to
attempt to reach one in a frail boat.

In fact, this calculation placed it at least twelve hundred miles from
Tahiti and the islands of the archipelago of the Pomoutous, more than
eighteen hundred miles from New Zealand, and more than four thousand
five hundred miles from the American coast!

And when Cyrus Harding consulted his memory, he could not remember in
any way that such an island occupied, in that part of the Pacific, the
situation assigned to Lincoln Island.

Chapter 15

The next day, the 17th of April, the sailor's first words were addressed
to Gideon Spilett.

"Well, sir," he asked, "what shall we do to-day?"

"What the captain pleases," replied the reporter.

Till then the engineer's companions had been brickmakers and potters,
now they were to become metallurgists.

The day before, after breakfast, they had explored as far as the point
of Mandible Cape, seven miles distant from the Chimneys. There, the long
series of downs ended, and the soil had a volcanic appearance. There
were no longer high cliffs as at Prospect Heights, but a strange and
capricious border which surrounded the narrow gulf between the two
capes, formed of mineral matter, thrown up by the volcano. Arrived at
this point the settlers retraced their steps, and at nightfall entered
the Chimneys; but they did not sleep before t