midday
Snow speculated . `` The _ Sophie Sutherland _ and the _ Herman _ were sealers , you remember , chartered out of San Francisco by the chaps with the maps who can always go right to the spot until they get there and do n't . '' After a giddy night of grand and lofty tumbling , in which , over a big and dying sea , without a breath of wind to steady her , the Uncle Toby rolled every person on board sick of soul , a light breeze sprang up and the reefs were shaken out . By midday , on a smooth ocean floor , the clouds thinned and cleared and sights of the sun were obtained . Two degrees and fifteen minutes south , the observation gave them . With a broken chronometer longitude was out of the question . `` We 're anywhere within five hundred and a thousand miles along that latitude line , '' Grief remarked , as he and the mate bent over the chart .