^ THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



They therefore asked that the Falmouth packets might be sent to 

 Providence instead of to Boston. This appeared strange to the 

 doctor, for London was much farther than Falmouth, and from Fal- 

 mouth the routes were the same, and the difference should have 

 been the other way. He, how^ever, consulted Captain Folger, a 

 Nantucket whaler, who chanced to be in London also ; the fish- 

 erman explained to him that the difference arose from the circum- 

 stance that the Rhode Island captains were acquainted with the 

 Gulf Stream, while those of the English packets were not. The 

 latter kept in it, and were set back sixty or seventy miles a day, 

 while the former avoided it altogether. He had been made ac- 

 quainted with it by the whales which were found on either side of 

 it, but never in it (^ 65). At the request of the doctor, he then 

 traced on a chart the course of this stream from the Straits of 

 Florida. The doctor had it engraved at Tower Hill, and sent 

 copies of it to the Falmouth captains, who paid no attention to it. 

 The course of the Gulf Stream, as laid down by that fisherman 

 from his general recollection of it, has been retained and quoted 

 on the charts for navigation, we may say, until the present day. 



But the investio^ations of which we are treating are beo;inninQ: 

 to throw more light upon this subject ; they are giving us more 

 correct knowledge in every respect with regard to it, and to many 

 other new and striking features in the physical geography of the 

 sea. 



79. No part of the world affords a more difficult or dangerous 

 navigation than the approaches of our northern coast in winter. 

 Before the warmth of the Gulf Stream was known, a voyage at 

 this season from Europe to New England, New York, and even 

 to the Capes of the Delaware or Chesapeake, was many times 

 more trying, difficult, and dangerous than it now^ is. In making 

 this part of the coast, vessels are frequently met by snow-storms 

 and gales which mock the seaman's strength and set at naught his 

 skill. In a little while his bark becomes a mass of ice ; w^ith her 

 crew frosted and helpless, she remains obedient only to her helm, 

 and is kept away for the Gulf Stream. After a few hours' run, 

 she reaches its edge, and almost at the next bound passes from the 

 midst of winter into a sea at summer heat. Now the ice disap- 

 pears from her apparel ; the sailor bathes his stiffened limbs in tep- 

 id waters; feeling himself invigorated and refreshed with the 



