{"id":"01KG8AKTVZT9SNGETPHJ1MZMK6","cid":"bafkreicqku7nk4ggg2655dumeuvcniq4qrurro7ab5bjfbtsxuv4mro3ba","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2188,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","start_line":2119,"text":"CHAPTER XVII.\r\nTHE CORAL ISLANDS\r\n\r\n\r\nHow far we sailed to the westward after leaving the Marquesas, or what\r\nmight have been our latitude and longitude at any particular time, or\r\nhow many leagues we voyaged on our passage to Tahiti, are matters about\r\nwhich, I am sorry to say, I cannot with any accuracy enlighten the\r\nreader. Jermin, as navigator, kept our reckoning; and, as hinted\r\nbefore, kept it all to himself. At noon, he brought out his quadrant, a\r\nrusty old thing, so odd-looking that it might have belonged to an\r\nastrologer.\r\n\r\nSometimes, when rather flustered from his potations, he went staggering\r\nabout deck, instrument to eye, looking all over for the sun—a\r\nphenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right overhead. How\r\nupon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle his latitude, is\r\nmore than I can tell. The longitude he must either have obtained by the\r\nRule of Three, or else by special revelation. Not that the chronometer\r\nin the cabin was seldom to be relied on, or was any ways fidgety; quite\r\nthe contrary; it stood stock-still; and by that means, no doubt, the\r\ntrue Greenwich time—at the period of stopping, at least—was preserved\r\nto a second.\r\n\r\nThe mate, however, in addition to his “Dead Reckoning,” pretended to\r\nascertain his meridian distance from Bow Bells by an occasional lunar\r\nobservation. This, I believe, consists in obtaining with the proper\r\ninstruments the angular distance between the moon and some one of the\r\nstars. The operation generally requires two observers to take sights,\r\nand at one and the same time.\r\n\r\nNow, though the mate alone might have been thought well calculated for\r\nthis, inasmuch as he generally saw things double, the doctor was\r\nusually called upon to play a sort of second quadrant to Jermin’s\r\nfirst; and what with the capers of both, they used to furnish a good\r\ndeal of diversion. The mate’s tremulous attempts to level his\r\ninstrument at the star he was after, were comical enough. For my own\r\npart, when he did catch sight of it, I hardly knew how he managed to\r\nseparate it from the astral host revolving in his own brain.\r\n\r\nHowever, by hook or by crook, he piloted us along; and before many\r\ndays, a fellow sent aloft to darn a rent in the fore-top-sail, threw\r\nhis hat into the air, and bawled out “Land, ho!”\r\n\r\nLand it was; but in what part of the South Seas, Jermin alone knew, and\r\nsome doubted whether even he did. But no sooner was the announcement\r\nmade, than he came running on deck, spy-glass in hand, and clapping it\r\nto his eye, turned round with the air of a man receiving indubitable\r\nassurance of something he was quite certain of before. The land was\r\nprecisely that for which he had been steering; and, with a wind, in\r\nless than twenty-four hours we would sight Tahiti. What he said was\r\nverified.\r\n\r\nThe island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group—sometimes\r\ncalled the Coral Islands—perhaps the most remarkable and interesting in\r\nthe Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a\r\nday’s sail of that place.\r\n\r\nThey are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes wooded,\r\nbut always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped; others\r\nresemble a horse-shoe in figure. These last are nothing more than\r\nnarrow circles of land surrounding a smooth lagoon, connected by a\r\nsingle opening with the sea. Some of the lagoons, said to have\r\nsubterranean outlets, have no visible ones; the inclosing island, in\r\nsuch cases, being a complete zone of emerald. Other lagoons still, are\r\ngirdled by numbers of small, green islets, very near to each other.\r\n\r\nThe origin of the entire group is generally ascribed to the coral\r\ninsect.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJH0C3G25AV0CX5AT7V2M","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKTVZG34MTTWR9S9YRRT3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:17.279Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:24.467Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}