Page:Captain Cook's Journal during His First Voyage Round the World.djvu/18

xii to be found, it is that he takes occurrences involving much labour and hardship as such matters of course, that it is not easy for the reader, especially if he be a landsman, to realise what they really entail.

Cook was assiduous in obtaining observations to ascertain the Variation of the compass—i.e., the difference between the direction shown by the magnetic needle and the true north. He is constantly puzzled by the discrepancies in these observations made at short intervals. These arose from the different positions of the ship's head, whereby the iron within a certain distance of the compass is placed in different positions as regards the needle working the compass card, the result being that the needle is attracted from its correct direction in varying degree. This is known as the Deviation of the compass. The cause of this, and of the laws which govern it, were only discovered by Captain Flinders in 1805. Happily for the navigators of those days, little iron entered into the construction of ships, and the amount of the Deviation was not large, though enough to cause continual disquiet and wonderment.

Cook's longitudes in this voyage are all given as west of Greenwich, not divided into east and west, as is usual at this day. The latter system again has only been adopted universally since his time.

Though Cook himself gives, at the beginning of the Journal, a note of the method of reckoning days adopted, it may not be amiss to give further explanation here.

It was the usual custom on board ships to keep what was known as Ship time—i.e., the day began at noon before the civil reckoning, in which the day commences at midnight. Thus, while January 1st, as ordinarily reckoned, is from midnight to midnight, in ship time it began at noon on December 31st and ended at noon January 1st, this period being called January 1st. Hence the peculiarity all through the Journal of the p.m. coming before the a.m. It results that any events recorded as occurring in the p.m.