HIS WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS 61 



mentioned in 105 days, though the year before this same 

 ship had made the run in 97 days. 



Another famous race was run during the winter of 

 1852-1853, and the ships which engaged in it were the 

 Wild Pigeon, John Gilpin, Flying Fish, and Trade Wind. 

 These ships, as were those in the former race, were all 

 furnished with Maury's charts. After a most interesting 

 and exciting race, the Flying Fish won in just 92 days and 

 4 hours, though the John Gilpin was a close second, 

 making the passage in 93 days and 20 hours. In com- 

 menting on these results, Maury wrote, "Here are ships 

 sailing on different days, bound over a trackless waste 

 of ocean for some fifteen thousand miles or more, and 

 depending alone on the fickle winds of heaven, as they 

 are called, to waft them along; yet, like travelers on the 

 land bound upon the same journey, they pass and repass, 

 fall in with and recognize each other by the way; and 

 what, perhaps, is still more remarkable is the fact that 

 these ships should each, throughout that great distance 

 and under the wonderful vicissitudes of climates, winds, 

 and currents, which they encountered, have been so 

 skillfully navigated that, in looking back at their man- 

 agement, now that what is past is before me, I do not 

 find a single occasion, except the one already mentioned, 



on which they could have been better handled 



Am I far wrong, therefore, when I say that the present 

 state of our knowledge,- with regard to the physical 

 geography of the sea, has enabled the navigator to blaze 

 his way among the winds and currents of the sea, and so 

 mark his path that others, using his signs as finger- 

 boards, may follow in the same track?"^ 



The degree of exactness which Maury's knowledge of 



2 "Sailing Directions", sixth edition (1854), pp. 725-730. 



