168 TABLES OF NAVIGATION. [appendix. 



III. 



TABLES OF NAVIGATION. 

 The subjoined tables of navigation, witb which I have been 

 favoured by Mr. Caldbeck, commander of the Madeira packet 

 brig " Brilliant," may prove interesting and useful to such as 

 contemplate a yacht voyage to Madeira. 



" Some difference of opinion appearing to exist as to the 

 actual distance between Southampton and Funchal, I beg 

 to offer you the results of a few calculations I have worked 

 with reference to the subject. The maritime positions are 

 deduced from Table 8, in the ' Practice of Navigation,' by 

 Lieutenant Raper, R.N., and which valuable book has ob- 

 tained for its author the prize of the gold medal of the Royal 

 Geographical Society. 



" The various points assumed in the route are those which 

 would successively be reached by a ship bound to Madeira, 

 with a fair wind, and in moderate weather. A probability of 

 a scant wind (i. e. a breeze barely permitting the vessel 

 to pursue her course), or the circumstance of a mountainous 

 north-westerly swell, rolling in from the Atlantic upon the 

 rugged shores of Gallicia, would of course tend to modify 

 this track in some measure. 



" To those possessing yachts and sufficiently ambitious to 

 wish to vary the monotony of cruizes ' round the Bramble, ' 

 ' up Southampton Water,' and ' clown to Bern bridge,' by a 

 dash into the western wave, the Table of Courses and Dis- 

 tances may be of use; while, with regard to tbe navigation of 

 those seas to which the table refers, any modern book of 

 sailing directions is sufficiently explicit. 



" Much stress having lately been laid upon the advantages 

 to be derived from sailing upon the orthodromic curve, com- 



