Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the broad maritime link between Yokohama and San Francisco in Phileas Fogg’s journey around the world, and its crossing marks the transition from the Asian stages of the route to the final continental passage through the United States. Aboard the General Grant, Fogg’s party travels across the ocean under a timetable that converts an immense distance into days, dates, and connections. The crossing appears unusually calm, but its position in the itinerary makes it decisive: after it, the route runs westward across North America and the Atlantic toward London.

Route and Place in the Journey

The party boards the General Grant at Yokohama for the passage to San Francisco. The steamer belongs to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and its destination connects the Japanese port to the American coast. The Pacific is therefore not a detached scenic episode but a working segment of the travel network: it carries the travelers between two ports from which their onward movement depends on further transport connections.

The crossing follows several long circuits already imposed by the route. By November 23, the ship has passed the 180th meridian and reached the antipodes of London. The date places the party halfway around the terrestrial globe by longitude, but not halfway through the journey’s actual mileage. The route’s earlier deviations—from London to Aden, onward to Bombay and Calcutta, then through Singapore to Yokohama—mean that the travelers have already covered two-thirds of the distance they must travel. The Pacific leg thus comes after most of the actual mileage, even as the meridian crossing makes the expedition’s global scale newly visible.

The General Grant and the Passage

The General Grant is described as a large paddle-wheel steamer of 2,500 tons, equipped for speed. Its walking beam rises and falls above the deck, and its connecting machinery transfers the engine’s motion to the paddles. Three masts provide additional sail capacity, supplementing the steam power. The ship is expected to make twelve miles an hour and cross the ocean in twenty-one days. Those figures give Fogg grounds to expect arrival in San Francisco on December 2, followed by New York on December 11 and London on December 20—one day before the wager’s deadline.

The ship carries a full complement of passengers: English and American travelers, coolies bound for California, and East Indian officers on leave and making a tour of the world. The voyage itself brings no event of major consequence. The steamer rolls little, and the Pacific almost seems to merit its name. This relative calm contrasts with the earlier account of the Mongolia rolling heavily in the Red Sea, where wind and waves interrupt the shipboard social life. On the Pacific passage, the vessel’s steadiness keeps the projected schedule plausible.

Distance, Time, and Measurement

The ocean crossing is framed through calculation as much as geography. On the ninth day after leaving Yokohama, Fogg has traversed exactly half the terrestrial globe; on November 23, the General Grant passes the 180th meridian. Yet the narrative distinguishes that geometrical halfway point from progress along the actual itinerary: seventeen thousand five hundred miles have been completed out of a projected twenty-six thousand, leaving twenty-eight of the eighty days. The difference between half the globe by meridian and two-thirds of the journey by mileage makes the route’s detours concrete.

The Pacific also belongs to the novel’s larger account of a world made smaller by modern transport. Earlier, the speed of contemporary travel and the opening of a railway section are offered as reasons that an around-the-world journey can be completed in eighty days. Here, the steamer’s stated speed, expected crossing time, and planned arrival dates give that claim a practical form. Ocean distance has not disappeared; it has become something Fogg can measure, schedule, and compare against the deadline.

Narrative Significance

The crossing shifts the party from the complex Asian route toward a more direct westward run. By the time the ship reaches the antipodes, Fix is no longer present to obstruct them, and the remaining itinerary appears more straightforward: San Francisco, a railway journey across the United States, a transatlantic steamer from New York to Liverpool, and then London. The ocean passage therefore carries both geographic distance and a change in the journey’s prospects, as the party moves beyond the earlier circuits and toward the final sequence of connections.

For Aouda, the voyage also continues a change in her relation to Fogg. Her gratitude for his protection has deepened into an attachment, while his silent generosity continues to impress her; she follows the progress of his plans and worries about delays. Passepartout recognizes her feelings and praises Fogg’s honesty, generosity, and devotion, while reassuring her that the hardest part of the journey is behind them. The Pacific crossing gives this private development a shared interval aboard ship, even as the travelers remain focused on the timetable. Its calm, measured passage makes the final approach seem attainable, without yet settling whether the schedule can be kept.