232 



THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. 



[CHAP. v. 



singular and instructive. It seems that the e Mer- 

 cury ' is a vessel belonging to the Commissioners in 

 charge of the hospitals and prisons of New York, and 

 it is employed for the purpose of training boys, 

 committed by the magistrates for vagrancy and slight 

 misdemeanours, to become thorough seamen. One 

 important part of the training in this ship is that 

 she makes long cruises, and the boys are thus fitted 

 quickly to enter into the service of the navy or the 

 mercantile marine. In the present cruise, the Com- 

 missioners, desiring to promote the education of the 

 lads and to advance the interests of science as much 

 as lay in their power, instructed the captain to obtain 

 a series of soundings on the line of or near the 

 equator from the coast of Africa to the mouth of the 

 Amazon, and to observe the set of the surface currents 

 and the temperature of the water at various depths. 



The Commissioners report most favourably of this 

 mode of training, which is now being so generally 

 adopted in this country. For such boys the adven- 

 turous life has a special charm, and, " instead of 

 growing up to be a curse to the community, they 

 are made into valuable men." Two hundred and 

 fifty scapegraces were sent out on this voyage, and 

 on the return of the ship, in the opinion of the 

 captain 100 of these were capable of discharging the 

 duties of ordinary seamen. 



Brooke's detaching sounding apparatus was used 

 in the ' Mercury/ and in the report of the scientific 

 results of the voyage, which was drawn out by Pro- 

 fessor Henry Draper of New York, a diagram of the 

 bed of the Atlantic at the twelfth parallel is intro- 

 duced, based on fifteen soundings. It shows that, 



