334 PHYSICAIi GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



the currents were sent forth as pall-bearers, with the command 

 to deposit the dead corpses where the plummet found them. 



619. Animalculce at the surface of the sea. — Fellow-labourers as 

 Foster, and Toynbee, and Piazzi Smyth, are beginning to dip 

 into the surface water of the sea for its animalculas. They are 

 making interesting discoveries, and have gone quite far enough 

 to show that this field is exceedingly rich, and that labourers in 

 it are greatly needed.* 



CHAPTER XV. 



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



621. Practical results of physical researches at sea. — ^Plate VIII., 

 so far as the winds are concerned, is supplemental to Plate I. 

 The former shows the monsoon regions, and indicates the 

 prevailing direction of the winds in every part of the ocean ; 

 the latter indicates it generally for any latitude, without regard 

 to any particular sea. Plate VIII. also exhibits the principal 

 routes across the ocean. This plate indicates the great practical 

 results of all the labour connected with this vast system of 

 research ; its aim is the improvement of navigation ; 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 utilitarian 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. Time-tahles. — So to shape the course on voyages as to 

 make the most of the winds 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 detennined 

 by actual observation. Their direction has been determined for 

 months and for seasons, along many of the principal routes, with 

 all the accuracy of which results depending on the doctrine of 



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

 Captain Henry Toynbee, F.R.A.S. [Naut. Magazine, I860,] 



