about
noon
`` When that work was over , I began to wonder what I should do next , and then an idea struck me . ` Suppose , ' thought I , ` that we are not stationary , but that we are in some queer kind of a current , and that the water , ship and all are steadily moving on together , so that after awhile we shall come in sight of land , or into the track of vessels ! ' `` I instantly set about to find out if this was the case . It was about noon , and it so happened that on the day before , when the chief officer took his observation , I was seized with a desire to watch him and see how he did it . I do n't see why I should have had this notion , but I had it , and I paid the strictest attention to the whole business , calculation part and all , and I found out exactly how it was done . `` Well , then , I went and got the quadrant , -- that 's the thing they do it with , -- and I took an observation , and I found that we were in latitude 15 ° north , 90 ° east , exactly where we had been twenty-four hours before ! `` When I found out this , I turned so faint that I wanted to sit down and cover up my head .