As Nellie steamed toward Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the World realized it had a problem. Because she would be spending four or five days at a time at sea or on a train, her dispatches did not come in every day, or even every other day. But people were interested, and the editors and Pulitzer wanted to capitalize on that interest. And so they came up with “The Nellie Bly Guessing Match.” In every Sunday edition starting with Dec. 1, there would be a coupon to guess the exact time, down to the second, when Nellie Bly would finish her “tour of the world.” Only one guess was permitted per coupon, but one could enter an unlimited number of coupons. The prize? A first-class trip to Europe, with a week in London, Paris, and Rome. The guessing match began in earnest: by the end of the first day, the World had received more than 100,000 guesses. As of Sunday, December 8, at the end of the first week of the Nellie Bly Guessing match, the World reported that the week’s total circulation was three hundred thousand over the previous week. People from all over the country entered the contest. It was at that point that the Nellie Bly tour became the biggest story in America.