22 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



States and in England and can be found in the 

 Library of Congress. 



In 1774 Captain Bernard Romans published a 

 chart of the coast of East and West Florida to 

 accompany his book on natural history (Romans 

 1776). The document is dedicated to the Marine 

 Society of the City of New York; it is so rare that 

 its existence was doubted by some bibliographers. 

 The original is now in the Harvard University 

 Library, and the map was referred to in Senate 

 Document, 30th Congress, 1st Session, Report of 

 Committee No. 242, August 12, 1848, to accom- 

 pany Bill S. No. 338, relating to the Ever Glades. 

 Romans' observations are of interest to biologists 

 on account of the list of higher plants of Florida 

 collected and identified by him and because of his 

 remarks concerning the fisheries of Florida and 

 Georgia. According to his statement, the princi- 

 pal fishes caught for trade and export were red 

 drum (called in East Florida "bass" and in West 

 Florida "carp"), pompano, sole, sea trout, and 

 mullet. Oil was extracted from the livers 

 of "nurses" (sic) and sharks, and glue was made 

 from sea trout by drying them. The product was, 

 using Romans' expression, "a perfect ichtyocalla." 



Although no organized studies of the hydrog- 

 raphy and oceanography of the Gulf were 

 conducted during the eighteenth century, infor- 

 mation received by the admiralties of the European 

 countries from captains sailing the Gulf waters 

 provided material for the corrections of the 

 existing maps. 



An interesting translation of a Spanish docu- 

 ment was published about 1740 in London 

 (Carranza 1740). The manuscript and the chart 

 of the West Indies were given Carranza by a 

 prisoner in Havana as a token of friendship. The 

 book contains interesting data on tidal currents, 

 description of shoals along the coasts of Yucatan 

 and Florida, and depicts the channels that should 

 be followed in navigation. Chapter 5 deals, in a 

 rather detailed manner, with the currents and 

 gives information on the variation of the compass 

 which, as stated in the text, "is easterly, that is 

 to say, in that part of it, among the shoals of 

 Campeche it is 3°20', and when you are out of 

 soundings, 4°30'; in the middle of the bay 5}^° 

 to 6° and on the coast of La Vera Cruz, it amounts 

 to 7°." 



Incidental biological observations were occa- 

 sionally reported by seafaring captains. Captain 



Uring (1726, new ed., 1928) mentions, for in- 

 stance, many sea turtles his crew found on the 

 shore when his ship was aground in Campeche 

 Bay. He states that from June to August they 

 lay eggs of which he counted as many as 150 in a 

 litter. He found, also, in the same bay a large 

 herd of "sea cows, or manatees, from 12 to 14 

 feet long and weighing from 800 to 1,000 pounds," 

 about which he writes, "the flesh of it was as white 

 as the finest veal. Their hides are cut into small 

 strips to make whips which the poor slaves are 

 well acquainted with all over West Indies." He 

 makes numerous references to sand flies and 

 troublesome "muchetos" infesting the woods. 

 No biological studies were undertaken, however, 

 during this period, and no attempts were made to 

 obtain a representative collection of plants and 

 animals of the Gulf. 



FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE NINE- 

 TEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT 

 TIME 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century the 

 geographical knowledge of the Gulf of Mexico 

 made marked progress. As can be judged from 

 the charts of that period the configuration of shore- 

 line including the coasts of Florida and the Yuca- 

 td^n Peninsula appeared to be almost correctly 

 outlined; many shoals and banks were shown with 

 numerous soundings and notations regarding the 

 character of bottom together with other hydro- 

 graphical data. The Spanish map of Don Juan 

 Langdra, issued in 1799 and revised in 1805, is 

 a good example of the best type of cartographic 

 material available at this time (issues of this map 

 are in the Library of Congress and in the American 

 Geographical Society). 



By the middle of the nineteenth century gross 

 inaccuracies apparent in the older issues were 

 almost eliminated as can be seen by examining 

 Laurie's map (fig. 8) published in 1856 in London 

 or a chart which appeared in a French manual 

 for navigation in the Caribbean Sea and the 

 Gulf (Kerhallet 1853). The latter map shows a 

 general picture of the movement of surface waters, 

 depicts the ingress of the Antillean Current, and 

 indicates the existence of a large eddy in the central 

 part of the Gulf (fig. 9). 



In the United States the act of Congress of 

 February 10, 1807, inaugurated a new era of ma- 



