SEA ROUTES, CALM BELTS, AND VARIABLE WINDS. 321 



619. Fellow-labourers as Foster, and Toynbee, and Piazzi 

 Animalcule at the Smyth, are beginning to dip into the sm^face water 

 surface of the sea. ^f ^q gea for its animalculse . They are making 

 interesting discoveries, ^nd have gone quite far enough to show 

 that this field is exceedingly rich, and that labourers in it are 

 greatly needed.* 



CHAPTEK Xy. 



§ 621-680. — SEA ROUTES, CALM BELTS, AND VARIABLE WINDS. 



621. Plate YIII., so far as the mnds are concerned, is supple- 

 Practical results of mental to Plate I. The former shows the monsoon 



physical researches . t • t i xi -t t •• e ii 



at sea. rcgious, and mdicates the prevailmg dn^ection oi the 



winds in every part of the ocean ; the latter indicates it generally 

 for any latitude, without regard to any particular sea. Plate YIII. 

 also exhibits the principal routes across the ocean. Tliis plate 

 indicates the great practical results of aU the labour connected with 

 this vast system of research ; its aim is the improvement of naviga- 

 tion ; its end, the shortening of voyages. Other interests and 

 other objects, nay, the great cause of human knowledge, have been 

 promoted by it ; but the advancement that has been given to these 

 do not, in this utihtarian age, and in the mind of people so emi- 

 nently practical as mariners are, stand out in a relief half so grand 

 and imposing as do those achievements by which the distant isles 

 and marts of the sea have, for the convenience of commerce, been 

 lifted up, as it were, and brought closer together by many days, 

 sail. 



622. So to shape the course on voyages as to make the most of 

 Time-tables. the wiuds and currents at sea is the perfection of the 

 navigator's art. How the winds blow and the currents flow along 

 this route or that, is no longer matter of opinion or subject of 

 speculation, but it is a matter of certainty determined by actual 

 observation. Their dkection has been determined for months and 

 for seasons, along many of the principal routes, with aU the accu- 

 racy of which results depending on the doctrine of chances are 

 capable ; and farther, these results are so certain that there is no 

 longer any room for the mariner to be in doubt as to the best 

 route. When a navigator undertakes a voyage now, he does it 



* See paper " On the Minute Inhabitants of the Surface of the Ocean," by 

 Captain Henry Toynbee, F.R.A.S. [Naut. Magazine, 1860.J 



