The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1911-08-24
Paris Newspaper Man Try
ing to Break All Pre-
Vi0uS Records.
VERY little while Mother
Earth reduces her waist meas
~ ure. The distance around

Aa@ ure. The distance around
gets smaller every few years
now. If engineers keep faith with
their time tables and pilots steer their
SHIPS clear Of rocks and shoals a tray
eler from Paris will carry a belt
around the world in forty-two days.
He is on the way-due in Paris again
on Aug. 2G.
That beats the time Of Nellie BLY,,
the famous newspaper woman. She
went around in seventy-two days and
a quarter. On her way she stopped
OF some hours at Amiens, in France,
to tell Jules Verne that she was hus-
Ting to beat the time which he made
his imaginary hero, Phileas Fogg, take
to accomplish the circuit of the earth,
which was eighty days almost to the
second
What would some of the old timers
say to such feats? Think of Magellan,
first man in all the world to go around
the globe. He started on Tuesday,
Sept. 20, 1919, with this roster of in
struments: Twenty-three parchment
charts, six pairs of compasses, twenty
one wooden quadrants, seven astro-
labes, thirty-fve compass needles and
eighteen h0urglasses. A meager
equipment, indeed, would be the YER
dict of the most daredevil skipper Of
the craziest tramp steamer that ever
entered an American harbor. Yet
Magellan butted his way through the
terrible strait that now bears his
name, with half subdued mutiny in
his rear: He found the Philippine Is
lands, and there he was murdered, and
one OF his subordinates, Sebastian del
Cano, completed the voyage in one of
his ships, reaching Seville, Spain, in
twelve days less than three years from
the day they had started from that
port.
brakes Voyage.
Think of Drake, Englands naval
hero, first to carry the English flag
around the world. Without charts he
steered his solitary voyage for weeks
through seas utterly unknown. He
left plymouth in the middle of De-
cember, 1877, and returned to that
port after a cruise Of two years, ten
months and some days, which he and
his men had spent lin seeing the Won
ders OF the Lord in the deep, in dis
corning 50 many admirable things, in
going through with SO many strange
adventures, in escaping out of so
many dangers and overcoming so
many difficulties in this our encom-
passing Of this neither globe and pass
ing around about the world
And there was Captain Robert Gray,
first to carry the American flag around
the earth. Leaving Boston in 1871, he
returned in his good ship, the Column
bia, in fifty days less than three years,
having given a name to the great river
OF the northwest, crossed the Pacific
to Canton and rounded the Cape Of
Good Hope with tea for the port of the
Puritans.
For centuries the time around the
globe had to be counted in years. Then
came the railroad and the steamship,
and the itinerary could be figured in
months. The tunneling Of the Alps
2nd tho bridging of India by rail gave
The French novelist his story. Then
the american girl took advantage Of
the lettering of the time Of steamboat
lines and railroad systems, and going
east and returning west to the starting
point became matter of fewer days
still. Now it is the Transsiberian rail-
road that makes the forty-two day
jaunt 4 possibility.
Always the first trip and the last
will be the most romantic, the story
of the man who dared what men had
never dared before and the tale Of the
last adventurer to grab a bag Of money
and couple Of brushes and try what
close connections can do in shaving a
day or an hour off the best time to
date.
Three Great Discoveries.
Fernao dc Magalhaes in his lifetime
saw the three most distinguished deeds
of geographical discovery-the round
ing of the Cape Of Good Hope by DiaZ,
the voyage to India by Da CANA and
the finding Of America by Columbus.
Prince Henry of Portugal, the nayiga-
tor, had given himself heart and soul
to adding new lands to his crown by
the daring Of his seamen. Magellan,
to use the name by which he common
IL is called was a man of steel, de
spising difficulties Portugal would
not equip him for his enterprises, and
We publicly denaturalized himself and
entered the service Of Charles Y. OF
Spain. lie would undertake a voyage
by way Of America to the Moluccas
The way across the isthmus Of Pana
ma and the passage to the north Of
the western continent had alike proved
impenetcable. He would go by the
south, seeking passage from the At
lantic to the south sea, and for the
discovery Of that passage he was pre-
Jared TO push as far southwark as Il
degrees.
In March, 1918, the Spanish kins
granted a capitulation settling thu