Chapter 8—We Sight a Wreck
It must be confessed the Doctor’s words were not very comforting, the passengers would not have heard them without shuddering. Was he joking, or did he speak seriously? Was it, indeed, true, that he went with theGreat Eastern in all her voyages, to be present at some catastrophe? Everything is possible for an eccentric, especially when he is English.
However, the Great Eastern continued her course, tossing like a canoe, and keeping strictly to the “shortest line “of steamers. It is well known, that on a flat surface, the nearest way from one point to another is by a straight line.
On a sphere it is the curved line formed by the circumference of great circles. Ships have an interest in following this route, in order to make the shortest passage, but sailing ves
