For the next ten days the weather was generally favorable, and she laid her course all the time.

Some days she made two hundred miles, and others less than one hundred.
On the sixteenth day from her departure, she was in latitude 51 deg., 4', 28" N.; longitude 31 deg., 10', 2" W.; course, E.by N.In going from Cape Race, the southern point of Newfoundland, to Cape Clear, the southern point of Ireland, the Young America did not lay a straight course, as it would appear when drawn on a map or chart.

La Rochelle, on the western coast of France, and Cape Race are nearly on the same parallel of latitude, and the former is exactly east of the latter.

But the parallel on which both points lie would not be the shortest line between them.

A great circle, extending entirely around the earth in the broadest part, going through both, would not coincide with the parallel, but would run to the north of it a considerable distance at a point half way between the two places, the separation diminishing each way till the great circle crosses the parallel at Cape Race and La Rochelle.