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238 mean? I don't know how Leäfar got the batteries, and I don't know what he knows about their use. I think it would not be safe to assume that he is beyond the risk of making mistakes. They have to learn things just as we have."

"He got the battery for us," I replied, "and it seems the safer thing to conclude that he knows more about it than we do. But what does it matter any way?"

"I'll tell you as near as I can. Don't mind a bit of rigmarole or what seems to be such. Trust me for coming to the point all the time."

"Go ahead," said I.

"Very well," he said, "I want to know, or to make as near a guess as possible, at two or three things.

"(1.) How fast are we going now, and how far are we from the wire? or how far were we when we started? That means, how soon shall we reach the wire?

"(2.) What are we to do if we overshoot the wire? We have no way of telling the longitude; my watch indeed is a capital chronometer, but I have altered it by the sun two or three times as near as I could. Besides, we cannot get the sun's place near enough. Now, if we overshoot the wire, we shall either have to cross the continent or else to make southward and look