midday
`` Also , since the night is clear , I will try , this very evening , to obtain our latitude by calculating the height of the Southern Cross , that is , from the southern pole above the horizon . You understand , my friends , that before undertaking the work of installation in earnest it is not enough to have found out that this land is an island ; we must , as nearly as possible , know at what distance it is situated , either from the American continent or Australia , or from the principal archipelagoes of the Pacific . '' `` In fact , '' said the reporter , `` instead of building a house it would be more important to build a boat , if by chance we are not more than a hundred miles from an inhabited coast . '' `` That is why , '' returned Harding , `` I am going to try this evening to calculate the latitude of Lincoln Island , and to-morrow , at midday , I will try to calculate the longitude . '' If the engineer had possessed a sextant , an apparatus with which the angular distance of objects can be measured with great precision , there would have been no difficulty in the operation . This evening by the height of the pole , the next day by the passing of the sun at the meridian , he would obtain the position of the island . But as they had not one he would have to supply the deficiency .