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Re: Location of Flip-Island in l'Oncle Robinson

From: <Skravitz~at~aol.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:16:06 EST
To: jvf~at~Gilead.org.il

In Chapter 2 of l'Oncle Robinson we are told that the three-masted Canadian
vessel Vancouver was chartered for a trip from "the coast of Asia" to San
Francisco. "The crossing ... would be a short one." A similar trip in Around the
World in Eighty Days requires 22 days but that vessel is a steamship and the
Vancouver apparently only has sails. The Vancouver leaves on March 14 and the
mutiny occurs on March 25 in the vicinity of Flip Island. The captain thinks
that his vessel may have drifted as far north as the Aleutians due to contrary
winds. So how far could a vessel with sails have gone in the 11 days from
March 14 to 25 on a route from China to San Francisco? In a later chapter the
characters speculate that Flip Island is further north than they originally
thought. In any event, Flip Island is shaped exactly like Lincoln Island in the
Mysterious Island except that it is in the North Pacific Ocean rather than in the
South and it is rotated 180 degrees so that the 300 foot wall faces west
rather than east as it does in the Mysterious Island.
     I'll look over the text of l'Oncle Robinson to see if I can find any
other clues to the location of Flip Island.
Sid Kravitz
Received on Thu 01 Apr 2004 - 05:16:20 IST

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