224 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



dred and sixty-two knots, or four hundred and nineteen miles, and the 

 greatest rate reported by the captain, is eighteen knots, or twenty-one 

 statute miles the hour. This is pretty fair railroad speed. 



The greatest distance ever before performed from noon to noon on 

 the ocean, was 374 knots, (433^ statute miles,) by the clipper ship 

 Flying Cloud, in her celebrated passage of eighty-nine days and 

 twenty-one hours, to San Francisco, in 1851, and which yet stands 

 unequalled. I say from noon to noon, because from noon to noon 

 was not, with either of these ships the exact measure of twenty-four 

 hours. The Flying Cloud was going to the northward and westward, 

 and on the day of her great run she made four degrees forty-six of 

 longitude which in time, is nineteen minutes four seconds that is 



^j 



her noon to noon for that day was twenty -four hours nineteen min- 

 utes four seconds. On the other hand, the Sovereign of the Seas was 

 steering to the eastward, and on the day of her great run, she made 

 eight degrees forty-four of longitude which in time, is thirty-four 

 minutes fifty-six seconds that is, her noon to noon for that day, was 

 only twenty-three hours twenty-five minutes four seconds long. Thus 

 the Flying Cloud's run in twenty-four hours nineteen minutes four 

 seconds, was 433^ statute miles, and the other, 419 statute miles in 

 twenty-three hours twenty-five minutes four seconds. Reducing these 

 runs each to the performance pro rata, according to the log, for 

 twenty-four hours, we have for the former ship 427.5, against 437. 6 by 

 the latter that is, the best twenty-four consecutive hours run by the 

 Sovereign of the Seas, exceeds the best consecutive twenty-four hours 

 of the Flying Cloud, only by the one-tenth part of one mile. 



The log of the Sovereign of the Seas stops May 3d, latitude 33 deg. 

 16 min. N., 432 nautical miles in a straight line from Sandy Hook. 

 Taking it therefore for the seventy-nine days for which she gives it, 

 arid stating the distance by straight line from her place at noon of one 

 day to the noon of the next, it appears that her daily average was 

 222.7 statute miles, making the whole distance sailed during the inter- 

 val to be 17,597 statute miles, which gives for canvass the remarkable 

 achievement of accomplishing a distance more than two-thirds of that 

 which it requires to encircle the earth at the average rate of nine 

 miles and upwards the hour for 1,896 consecutive hours. 



