Hitherto, Jack had been too busy working up his crew to pay much attention to the education of his midshipmen, but he had looked at yesterday's slips and they, with a very suspicious unanimity, had shown the Sophie in 39deg2I'N, which was fair enough, but also in a longitude that she could only have reached by cleaving the mountain-range behind Valencia to a depth of thirty-seven miles. 'What do you mean by sending me this nonsense?' he asked them. It was not really an answerable question; nor were many of the others that he propounded, and they did not, in fact, attempt to answer them; but they agreed that they were not there to amuse themselves, nor for their manly beauty, but rather to learn their professions; that their journals (which they fetched) were neither accurate, full, nor up to date, and that the ship's cat would have written them better; that they would for the future pay the greatest attention to Mr Marshall's observation and reckoning; that they would prick the chart daily with him; and that no man was fit to pass for a lieutenant, let alone bear any command ('May God forgive me,' said Jack, in an internal aside) who could not instantly tell the position of his ship to within a minute - nay, to within thirty seconds. Furthermore, they would show up their journals every Sunday, cleanly and legibly written.