What is the best kind of engine--the two cycle? three cycle? four cycle? My lips are mutilated with all kinds of strange jargon, my mind is mutilated with still stranger ideas and is foot-sore and weary from travelling in new and rocky realms of thought.--Ignition methods; shall it be make-and-break or jump-spark? Shall dry cells or storage batteries be used? A storage battery commends itself, but it requires a dynamo.How powerful a dynamo? And when we have installed a dynamo and a storage battery, it is simply ridiculous not to light the boat with electricity.Then comes the discussion of how many lights and how many candle-power.It is a splendid idea.But electric lights will demand a more powerful storage battery, which, in turn, demands a more powerful dynamo.
And now that we've gone in for it, why not have a searchlight? It would be tremendously useful.But the searchlight needs so much electricity that when it runs it will put all the other lights out of commission.Again we travel the weary road in the quest after more power for storage battery and dynamo.And then, when it is finally solved, some one asks, "What if the engine breaks down?"And we collapse.There are the sidelights, the binnacle light, and the anchor light.Our very lives depend upon them.So we have to fit the boat throughout with oil lamps as well.
But we are not done with that engine yet.The engine is powerful.
We are two small men and a small woman.It will break our hearts and our backs to hoist anchor by hand.Let the engine do it.And then comes the problem of how to convey power for'ard from the engine to the winch.And by the time all this is settled, we redistribute the allotments of space to the engine-room, galley, bath-room, state-rooms, and cabin, and begin all over again.And when we have shifted the engine, I send off a telegram of gibberish to its makers at New York, something like this: Toggle-joint abandoned change thrust-bearing accordingly distance from forward side of flywheel to face of stern post sixteen feet six inches.
Just potter around in quest of the best steering gear, or try to decide whether you will set up your rigging with old-fashioned lanyards or with turnbuckles, if you want strain of detail.Shall the binnacle be located in front of the wheel in the centre of the beam, or shall it be located to one side in front of the wheel?--there's room right there for a library of sea-dog controversy.Then there's the problem of gasolene, fifteen hundred gallons of it--what are the safest ways to tank it and pipe it? and which is the best fire-extinguisher for a gasolene fire? Then there is the pretty problem of the life-boat and the stowage of the same.And when that is finished, come the cook and cabin-boy to confront one with nightmare possibilities.It is a small boat, and we'll be packed close together.The servant-girl problem of landsmen pales to insignificance.We did select one cabin-boy, and by that much were our troubles eased.And then the cabin-boy fell in love and resigned.
And in the meanwhile how is a fellow to find time to study navigation--when he is divided between these problems and the earning of the money wherewith to settle the problems? Neither Roscoe nor I know anything about navigation, and the summer is gone, and we are about to start, and the problems are thicker than ever, and the treasury is stuffed with emptiness.Well, anyway, it takes years to learn seamanship, and both of us are seamen.If we don't find the time, we'll lay in the books and instruments and teach ourselves navigation on the ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii.
There is one unfortunate and perplexing phase of the voyage of the Snark.Roscoe, who is to be my co-navigator, is a follower of one, Cyrus R.Teed.Now Cyrus R.Teed has a different cosmology from the one generally accepted, and Roscoe shares his views.Wherefore Roscoe believes that the surface of the earth is concave and that we live on the inside of a hollow sphere.Thus, though we shall sail on the one boat, the Snark, Roscoe will journey around the world on the inside, while I shall journey around on the outside.But of this, more anon.We threaten to be of the one mind before the voyage is completed.I am confident that I shall convert him into making the journey on the outside, while he is equally confident that before we arrive back in San Francisco I shall be on the inside of the earth.How he is going to get me through the crust I don't know, but Roscoe is ay a masterful man.
P.S.--That engine! While we've got it, and the dynamo, and the storage battery, why not have an ice-machine? Ice in the tropics!
It is more necessary than bread.Here goes for the ice-machine!
Now I am plunged into chemistry, and my lips hurt, and my mind hurts, and how am I ever to find the time to study navigation?
