INTRODUCTION. XI 



interest or pleasure in a perusal of these passages, will lend their 

 assistance to the canying out of this plan, by advocating it 

 among their friends. These researches for the land look not only 

 to the advancement of the great interests of sanitary and agri- 

 cultural meteorology, but they involve also a study of the laws 

 which regulate the atmosphere, and call for a careful investigation 

 of all its phenomena. 



Another beautiful feature in this system is, that it costs nothing 

 additional. The instruments that these observations at sea call 

 for are such as are already in use on board of every well-con- 

 ditioned ship, and the observations that are required are precisely 

 those which are necessaiy for her safe and proper navigation. 



As great as is the value attached to what has been accomplished 

 by these researches in the way of shortening passages and lessen- 

 ing the dangers of the sea, a good of higher value is, in the 

 opinion of many seamen, yet to come out of the moral, the 

 educational influence which they are calculated to exert upon 

 the seafaring community of the w^orld. A very clever English 

 ship-master, speaking recently of the advantages of educational 

 influences among those who intend to follow the sea, remarks : 



" To the cultivated lad there is a new world spread out w^hen 

 he enters on his first voyage. As his education has fitted, so 

 will he perceive, year by year, that his profession makes him 

 acquainted with things new and instructive. His intelligence 

 will enable him to appreciate the contrasts of each country in its 

 general asj^ect, manners, and productions, and in modes of 

 navigation adapted to the character of coast, climate, and rivers. 

 He will dwell with interest on the phases of the ocean, the 

 storm, the calm, and the breeze, and will look for traces of the 

 laws which regulate them. All this will induce a serious 

 earnestness in his work, and teach him to view lightly those 

 irksome and often off'ensive duties incident to the beginner."* 



And that these researches do have such an eifect many noble- 

 hearted mariners have testified. Captain Phinney, of the Ameri- 

 can ship "Gertrude," writing from Callao, January, 1855, thus 

 expresses himself : 



* " The Log op a Merchant Officer ; viewed with reference to the 

 Education of young Officers and tlie Youth of the Merchant Service. By 

 Egbert Methren, Commander in the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and 

 author of the 'Narrative of the Blenheim Hurricane of 1851.'" London: 

 John Weale, 59 High Holboru ; Smith, Elder & Co., Coruhill; Ackcrmau & 

 Co., Strand. 1854. 



