him.

Of the hundred and forty-five million square miles of which the area
of the world's waters consists, the Atlantic claims about a quarter;
and it seemed as though the engineer was in no hurry to cross it.
There was now no going at full speed, none of the hundred and twenty
miles an hour at which the "Albatross" had flown over Europe. Here,
where the southwest winds prevail, the wind was ahead of them, and
though it was not very strong, it would not do to defy it and the
"Albatross" was sent along at a moderate speed, which, however,
easily outstripped that of the fastest mail-boat.

On the 13th of July she crossed the line, and the fact was duly
announced to the crew. It was then that Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
ascertained that they were bound for the southern hemisphere. The
crossing of the line took place without any of the Neptunian
ceremonies that still linger on certain ships. Tapage was the only
one to mark the event, and he did so by pouring a pint of water down
Frycollin's neck.

On the 18th of July, when beyond the tropic of Capricorn, another
phenomenon was noticed, which would have been somewhat alarming to a
ship on the sea. A strange succession of luminous waves widened out
over the surface of the ocean with a speed estimated at quite sixty
miles an hour. The waves ran along at about eight feet from one
another, tracing two furrows of light. As night fell a bright
reflection rose even to the "Albatross," so that she might have been
taken for a flaming aerolite. Never before had Robur sailed on a sea
of fire--fire without heat--which there was no need to flee from as
it mounted upwards into the sky.

The cause of this light must have been electricity; it could not be
attributed to a bank of fish spawn, nor to a crowd of those
animalculae that give phosphorescence to the sea, and this showed
that the electrical tension of the atmosphere was considerable.

In the morning an ordinary ship would probably have been lost. But
the "Albatross" played with the winds and waves like the powerful
bird whose name she bore. If she did not walk on their surface like
the petrels, she could like the eagles find calm and sunshine in the
higher zones.

They had now passed the forty-seventh parallel. The day was but
little over seven hours long, and would become even less as they
approached the Pole.

About one o'clock in the afternoon the "Albatross" was floating along
in a lower current than usual, about a hu