HIS PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA 83 



ing of that portion of the globe, yet Maury's name 

 deserves to be remembered among those whose continued 

 interest in this enterprise finally led to the conquering 

 of the South Pole. 



Another contribution which Maury made was the 

 laying down of lanes for steamers in the North Atlantic. 

 The idea originated with R. B. Forbes of Boston, but 

 was worked out scientifically by Maury. In the year 

 1855, at the instigation of a board of underwriters of 

 New York, who paid for its cost, he published a chart 

 illustrating what he called Ocean Lanes. To prepare 

 this chart he studied the logs of 46,000 days of observa- 

 tions of the wind and weather of that part of the North 

 Atlantic. Two tracks, or lanes, twenty miles wide, 

 were laid down, to the more northern of which he pro- 

 posed to confine the steamers westward bound, while 

 the eastward bound vessels were to use the other, 

 situated from one to ten degrees further south. 

 Although the Secretary of the Navy immediately or- 

 dered the ships of the navy to observe these lanes, they 

 were not generally adopted by the shipping of the world 

 until about thirty-six years after they were formulated, 

 and it was not until 1898 that all of the transatlantic 

 steamship companies consented in a written agreement 

 to use them. After a dispassionate investigation of the 

 lanes, they said that they were impressed with the 

 patience and researches that Maury must have made to 

 have laid down such excellent paths, and they recognized 

 that, had the highways been followed earlier, the great 

 majority of the accidents which had befallen vessels 

 in the North Atlantic mighl have been avoided. 



Maury, then, was not merely a theorizer without the 

 power of applying his ideas to the practical needs of men. 



