WHAT PROFESSOR PROCTOR HAS TO SAY ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 17 August 1888, Page 32

WHAT PROFESSOR PROCTOR HAS TO SAY ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS.

[The sole right of publication of this iufcerebting series of articled in New Zealand has been secured by the proprietors of the Ofcago Witness.] No. S.— TRACKING THE GREAT Di EP. The Voyagers of Olden Time— Their Daring in Leaving • Sight of Shore—Rough-and-ready Reckoning's of Old Sailors-De-termining Latitude Easy — Longtitude Determined with Difficulty— Safety at £ea - The Shortest Sea Routes— Approaching Land— Anxieties of the Watchful Captain —Narrow Escapes from Wrecking— Collisions in. Open Ocean. (Copyright 1888 by the Author.) We travel about so much now that most of us have special reason to be interested in the methods by which our safety in travelling is cared for. Even those who do not travel themselves have generally friends or relatives who travel, and even those who neither travel themselves nor have friends who do, are interested (without a single exception) in the system of commerce which renders travelling necessary. It may truly be said that the price of every simple article of food and clothing — even the home products of agriculture or manufacture — depends more or less on the particular problem of travelling which I am to consider now, finding the way at sea. I wonder how many passengers on long sea journeys inquire how the ship which carries them is guided on her course. My own experience suggests that not one pas"senger in 50 cares anything about it. I have often when at sea thought what a farce it is for so many people to pretend to take interest in astronomical researches, by which the position of the earth in her orbit, the nature of other worlds, the relations of other suns to ours, and the movements of our sun and his fellow suns in space, when itwould scarcely ever be possible to get a score of persons together on board ship to consider the corresponding