384 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



packet line from Falmouth to Boston. Dr. Franklin, on being ques- 

 tioned as to this fact, consulted an old New England captain, who had 

 been a whaler, and who informed the Doctor that the London traders 

 to Providence were commanded for the most part by New England 

 fishermen, who knew how to avoid the Gulf Stream, while the Fal- 

 mouth packets were commanded by Englishmen, who knew nothing 

 about it. These two drew a chart, which was published at the Tower, 

 and the Gulf Stream, as laid down there by that Yankee whaler, has 

 been preserved upon our charts until within a few years. The influ- 

 ence of the Gulf Stream thus becoming known through the influence of 

 Dr. Franklin and the discovery of the water-thermometer, the course 

 of trade formerly setting toward Charleston, S. C., was diverted to the 

 Northern ports. This revolution commenced about 1795. It worked 

 slowly at first, but in 1816-17 it received a fresh impulse from Jere- 

 miah Thompson, Isaac Wright, and others, who conceived the idea of 

 establishing a line of packets between New York and Liverpool. 

 This was a period when the scales of commercial ascendency were vi- 

 brating between New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other places. 

 The packet-ships of Thompson turned the balance. Though only of 

 300 tons burden, and sailing but once a month, they had their regular 

 day of departure, and the merchants of Philadelphia, Charleston, etc., 

 found it convenient to avail themselves of this regular and stated chan- 

 nel, for communicating with their agents in England, ordering goods, 

 etc., and from that time the commerce of New York has gone on stead- 

 ily increasing. 



NEW ROUTE FOR VESSELS TO THE EQUATOR. 



IN a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, dated May 13, Lieut. Mau- 

 ry says : " The investigations with regard to the winds and currents 

 of the ocean have led me to the discovery of a new route hence to the 

 equator, by which the passage of all vessels trading under canvas, 

 whether to South America, China, India, or Australia, to Califor- 

 nia, Polynesia, or the markets of the Pacific, has been shortened sev- 

 eral days." In order to show the importance of this discovery, he sub- 

 mits a tabular statement exhibiting the passages of 88 vessels by the 

 new, and of 73 by the old route, which were taken at random, and are 

 believed to afford a fair average. The average passage by the old 

 route to the equator is forty-one days. The passage by the new route 

 has frequently been made in half that time, and even in less- " The 

 vessels which have taken the new route in February and March have 

 had, on the average, a passage of fourteen or fifteen days less than 

 those which have taken the old route at the same season. It will be 

 observed by this statement, that the average passage to the equator 

 during the half-year which comprises the winter and spring months 

 has been shortened ten days by the new route, and by more than a 

 week, on the average, the year round." 



