AVERTED INTEREST 
335 
name was honoured in every Admiralty, he corresponded 
on terms of cordiality with emperors and princes ; scien- 
tific institutions in almost every country showered their 
honours upon him, though it is curious to note in the 
list of these distinctions that the British Empire is repre- 
sented by the University of Cambridge alone. 
In the middle of the nineteenth century steamers were 
so far perfected as to begin to come into rivalry with sail- 
ing ships as cargo-boats; but they were still so slow and 
their coal-endurance so limited that a well-found clip- 
per, commanded by a thoroughly trained navigator pos- 
sessed of a sound knowledge of winds and currents could 
still beat them on long voyages. Every improvement 
in the science of ocean meteorology gave the sailing ship 
a fresh advantage and prolonged the struggle for su- 
premacy on the sea with the growing power of steam. 
Thanks to Maury’s teaching American merchant cap- 
tains were the first to adopt the shortest or great-circle 
route on their voyages round the Cape of Good Hope and 
Australia to China, and back by Cape Horn. In doing 
so they necessarily reached high southern latitudes. The 
common use of maps on Mercator’s projection makes it 
difficult for the ordinary reader to understand how the 
shortest track from the Cape of Good Hope to New Zea- 
land can possibly lead a vessel south of the Antarctic cir- 
cle. The full explanation in words would fill several 
pages and form a wearisome digression, but a piece of 
thread stretched tight from Cape Town to Dunedin on a 
common school globe will prove in half a minute that the 
fact is beyond controversy. One of the American ships, 
inspired by Maury, discovered Heard Island south of 
Kerguelen while pursuing such a course. A British 
ship making a similar course lit on McDonald Island 
