Quotation from: The Cruise of the Snark

Written by: Jack London


Again alas and alack! The Correct Magnetic Course was not the
Compass Course. There was another sly little devil lying in wait to
trip me up and land me smashing on the reefs of Vatu Leile. This
little devil went by the name of Deviation. I read:


"The Compass Course is the course to steer, and is derived from the
Correct Magnetic Course by applying to it the Deviation."


Now Deviation is the variation in the needle caused by the
distribution of iron on board of ship. This purely local variation
I derived from the deviation card of my standard compass and then
applied to the Correct Magnetic Course. The result was the Compass
Course. And yet, not yet. My standard compass was amidships on the
companionway. My steering compass was aft, in the cockpit, near the
wheel. When the steering compass pointed west-by-south three-
quarters-south (the steering course), the standard compass pointed
west-one-half-north, which was certainly not the steering course. I
kept the Snark up till she was heading west-by-south-three-quarters-
south on the standard compass, which gave, on the steering compass,
south-west-by-west.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.