At that time the programme on the navigation side was as follows for second mate: Multiplication by logarithms, division by logarithms, the day's work. This latter was really a formidable task to me, from its length and complication, and it must have been so to many others, since I was told that there were more failures in it than in any other part of the examination. The day's work is the summing-up of all the various courses made and distances run by a ship from one noon to another, so as to find where she has arrived after all her zigzagging about. In the example set the ship is always supposed to be at starting within sight of some point of land whose position is known. A bearing of this is taken by the compass, and this, with the distance she is off, is known as the departure course and distance. The operation is technically termed "taking her departure," one of the very few purely nautical phrases which have passed into common use in this country. Then follow six other courses, all differing fairly widely, such courses as a sailing ship might be supposed to make with foul winds of varying strength. Lastly comes a current stated to be setting, say, S.S.E. twenty-two miles in the twenty-four hours. This is called the current course. The variation of the compass is given which will be the same for all the courses, deviation of the compass is given which is different for every course, and leeway is occasionally given, which is another disturbing element in calculating a true course. So that each of the eight courses must be carefully calculated, and then the mean of the whole obtained. It is then a simple problem to find at what point she has arrived, which must be done within one mile of a correct result. Then the problem of how to find the ship's latitude by a meridian altitude of the sun (very simple), the time of high water at any given place, a longitude by chronometer, etc. Definitions of terms used in navigation come next, which must be written out more as a test of penmanship and spelling than anything else; an exercise on the sextant, showing the candidate's ability to adjust as well as use it, and the navigation examination is over. As I think I said before, it should present no difficulty to any intelligent school-boy at the age of sixteen, while many would be able to do all the problems by trigonometry instead of by the rule-of-thumb method almost universally employed. For, as the candidate may do the work in whatever way he is accustomed to, it follows that the great majority do it in what, to them, is the easiest way, _i.e._ by the use of such tabular matter as is necessary and very easy to learn.