228 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



XII. 



OCEAN LANES FOR STEAMSHIPS. 

 By Benjamin Peirce. 



Read, May 12, 1874. 



The present paper lays no claim to originality, or even to novelty. 

 It will perform its desired function, if it should have any influence to 

 effect a systematic organization of the paths of the Atlantic steamers, 

 so as to remove the principal source of the dangei's of collision. It 

 aims to arouse public attention to the rapidly increasing magnitude of 

 the peril, and induce action before there shall come the irresistible logic 

 of terrible disasters following close upon each other. Such disasters 

 have already occurred, and even at an early period, when the danger 

 was not one-twentieth part of what it is now. When the number of 

 steamers shall be tenfold what it is to-day, — which will occur in the 

 next generation, — each steamer will be exposed to ten times the peril ; 

 and, as their number is tenfold, the whole number of collisions will be 

 one hundred-fold its present number. There will be as many in a 

 year as there are now in a century ; and every year will have its cruel 

 record of these fearful accidents. 



The necessity of protecting the ocean from this danger, by assigning 

 fixed limits to the routes of the steamships, was first considered as 

 early as the year 1855, in a correspondence between the late M. F. 

 Maury and numerous ship-owners and underwriters. This correspond- 

 ence originated, I believe, with R. B. Forbes, Esq., of Boston ; and I 

 think it was then that the expressive designation of ocean lanes was 

 introduced. The subsequent investigations of Mr. Maury referred 

 especially to the ordinary sailing vessels and purely mercantile steam- 

 ers, which should avoid the proposed lanes just in proportion as they 

 are occupied by swift steamers, for whose use they are intended. 



The subject has recently been taken in hand by Professor von 

 Freden, of the North German Observatory, who has collated the 

 routes of the various German steamers, and deduced from them what 

 he regards as a proper route for each month in the year, and in each 



