Off on a Comet by Jules Verne — Read

Lieutenant Procope had been left on board in charge of the _Dobryna_, / and on resuming the voyage it was a task of some difficulty to make him / understand the fact that had just come to light. Some hours were spent / in discussion and in attempting to penetrate the mysteries of the / situation.

There were certain things of which they were perfectly certain. They / could be under no misapprehension as to the distance they had positively / sailed from Gourbi Island towards the east before their further progress / was arrested by the unknown shore; as nearly as possible that was / fifteen degrees; the length of the narrow strait by which they had made / their way across that land to regain the open sea was about three miles / and a half; thence onward to the island, which they had been assured, / on evidence that they could not disbelieve, to be upon the site of / Gibraltar, was four degrees; while from Gibraltar to Gourbi Island was / seven degrees or but little more. What was it altogether? Was it not / less than thirty degrees? In that latitude, the degree of longitude / represents eight and forty miles. What, then, did it all amount to? / Indubitably, to less than 1,400 miles. So brief a voyage would bring the / _Dobryna_ once again to her starting-point, or, in other words, would / enable her to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. How changed / the condition of things! Previously, to sail from Malta to Gibraltar by / an eastward course would have involved the passage of the Suez Canal, / the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, the Atlantic; but what had / happened now? Why, Gibraltar had been reached as if it had been just at / Corfu, and some three hundred and thirty degrees of the earth's circuit / had vanished utterly.