HIS WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS 55 



went from the Capes of Virginia to Rio in 35 days and 

 returned in 40 days, by following Maury's directions. 

 This created considerable interest in the new charts, and 

 the number of those willing to cooperate in the new 

 research on the sea constantly increased from year to 

 year. Maury had long looked forward to the prospect 

 of no longer being compelled to search through cartloads 

 of manuscripts and dusty log books, kept in years gone 

 by without system and with little or no regard to the 

 facts which he wished to obtain from them, but of 

 having as co-laborers a thousand or more vessels every 

 year engaged in collecting exactly the information re- 

 quired so that it would come to his hands precisely in the 

 form in which it was desired. In this he was not to be 

 disappointed for by the close of the year 1848 he was 

 able to write that his charts were eagerly sought by 

 navigators and that some five or six thousand of them 

 had been distributed during the year to American ship- 

 masters. By no means all of these navigators kept their 

 part of the agreement and sent in to Maury their abstract 

 logs properly filled out; but enough data kept coming in 

 to keep his staff of helpers constantly at work turning out 

 his various charts. By 1851, he could write that more 

 than one thousand ships in all the oceans were observing 

 for him, and that enough material had been collected 

 from abstract logs to make two hundred large manu- 

 script volumes each averaging from two thousand to 

 three thousand days' observations. 



These "Wind and Current Charts" included Track 

 Charts, Trade Wind Charts, Pilot Charts, Thermal 

 Charts, Storm and Rain Charts, and Whale Charts. 

 The Track Charts showed the frequented parts of the 

 ocean, the general character of the weather and wind, 



