Royal Society. 383 



amongst them by all the gentlemen whose names are above stated, 

 and who were expressly sent by their respective governments. The 

 impulse communicated by this assemblage was without doubt highly 

 beneficial, and the influence of the discussions which took place may 

 perhaps be traced in some of the arrangements under which the 

 researches in different countries are now proceeding ; but in the 

 stage to which they have advanced, it may be doubted whether any 

 measures are likely to be more beneficial than those which would 

 increase the facilities of a cheap and rapid intercommunication of 

 the results of the researches which are in progress. 



With reference " to the suggestions made by the scientific men 

 of the United States," the proposition of Lieutenant Maury, to give 

 a greater extension and a more systematic direction to the meteoro- 

 logical observations to be made at sea, ajjpears to be deserving of 

 the most serious attention of the Board of Admiralty. In order to 

 understand the importance of this proposition, it will be proper to 

 refer to the system of observations which has been adopted of late 

 years in the navy and merchant service of the United States, and to 

 some few of the results to which it has already led. Instructions 

 ^re given to naval captains and masters of ships, to note in their 

 logs the points of the compass from which the wind blows, at least 

 once in every eight hours : to record the temperature of the air, and 

 of the water at the surface, and when practicable, at considerable 

 depths of the sea : to notice all remarkable phenomena which may 

 sen'e to characterize particular regions of the ocean, more especially 

 the direction, the velocity, the depths and the limits of the currents : 

 special instructions also are given to whalers, to note down the regions 

 where whales are found, and the limits of the range of their different 

 species. A scheme for taking these observations regularly and system- 

 atically, was submitted by Lieut. Maury to the Chief of the Bureau 

 of Ordnance and Hydrography, in 184"2, and instantly adopted ; de- 

 tailed instructions were given to every American shipmaster, upon 

 his clearing from the Custom House, accompanied by a request that 

 he would transmit to the proper office, after his return from his 

 voyage, copies of his logs, as far at least as they related to these 

 observations, with a view to their being examined, discussed and 

 embodied in charts of the winds and currents, and in the compila- 

 tion of sailing directions to every part of the globe. For some 

 years the instructions thus furnished received very little attention, 

 and very few observations were made or communicated ; the publi- 

 cation, however, in 1848, of some charts, founded upon the discus- 

 sion of the scanty materials which had come to hand or which could 

 be collected from other sources, and which indicated much shorter 

 routes than had hitherto been followed to Rio and other ports of 

 South America, was suflicient to satisfy some of the more intelligent 

 shij)masters of the object and real importance of the echeme, and 

 in less than two j-cars from that time it had received the coi'dial 

 cooperation of the masters of nearly cverj' shij) that sailed. At the 

 present time there are nearly 1 000 masters of ships who are engaged 

 in making these observations ; they receive freely in return the 



