134 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



and Mr. Spooner worked upon the knotty problem 

 until dark, when the two former gave it up. Not so 

 Mr. Spooner. He persevered three hours longer and 

 obtained the longitude, 116 W., and' it corresponded 

 with that of the afternoon. That night he forgot 

 to write up his journal. The next morning they got 

 a sunrise longitude, which agreed with the forenoon's, 

 and so they continued to test it, thus proving its cor- 

 rectness'beyond a doubt. 



They informed every ship they spoke of the discov- 

 ery, and by the time they arrived at Tahiti it was very 

 generally known. Many disbelieved it, but Capt. 

 William H. Gardner, of the " Eichard Mitchell," con- 

 firmed it by stating that he had navigated his ship 

 from the Society to the Galapagos Islands altogether 

 by sunset longitude. 



In the next issue was published the following : — 



Sunset Longitude. — Upon reading the article in our 

 last issue regarding the discovery of sunset longi- 

 tude, a gentleman called on us and made the follow- 

 ing statement: Said he, " In 1853 I was a passenger on 

 ship ' Seaman,' of Baltimore, Capt. William B. Daniels, 

 bound from San Francisco to the Eastern States. Just 

 before sunset one afternoon the captain said to me, * I 

 wish you would note the time by the chronometer ; I 

 want to get a sunset altitude.' I had heard of this 

 method of obtaining longitude, but had never seen it 

 tried, so I noted the time ; and soon after the captain 

 announced the longitude and that his morning's longi- 

 tude was not quite correct, adding, ' Lieut. Maury did 

 a great thing for navigation when he discovered sun- 



