232 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. [CHAP. V. 
singular and instructive. It seems that the ‘ Mer- 
cury’ is a vessel belonging to the Commissioners 
in charge of the hospitals and prisons of New York, 
and it is employed for the purpose of training boys, 
committed by the magistrates for vagrancy and slight 
misdemeanours, to become thorough seamen. One 
important part of the training in this ship is that 
she makes long cruises, and the boys are thus fitted 
quickly to enter into the service of the navy or the 
mercantile marine. In the present cruise the Com- 
missioners desiring to promote the education of the 
lads and to advance the interests of science as much 
as lay in their power, instructed the captain to obtain 
a series of soundings on the line of or near the 
equator from the coast of Africa to the mouth of the 
Amazon, and to observe the set of the surface currents 
and the temperature of the water at various depths. 
The Commissioners report most favourably of this 
mode of training, which is now being so generally ~ 
adopted in this country. Jor such boys the adven- 
turous life has a special charm, and, ‘instead of 
growing up to be a curse to the community, they 
are made into valuable men.” Two hundred and 
fifty scapegraces were sent out on this voyage, and 
on the return of the ship, in the opinion of the 
captain 100 of these were capable of discharging the 
duties of ordinary seamen. 
Brooke’s detaching sounding apparatus was used 
in the ‘Mercury,’ and in the report of the scientific 
results of the voyage, which was drawn out by Pro- 
fessor Henry Draper of New York, a diagram of the 
bed of the Atlantic at the tweltth parallel is intro- 
duced, based on fifteen soundings. It shows that, 
