140 Co-operation of different Nations 



derstand the importance of this proposition, it will be proper to refer 

 to the system of observations which has been adopted of late years 

 in the navy and merchant service of the United States, and to some 

 few of the results to which it has already led. Instructions are given 

 to naval captains and masters of ships, to note in their logs the points 

 of the compass from which the wind blows, at least once in every 

 eight hours ; to record the temperature of the air, and of the water 

 at the surface, and when practicable, at considerable depths of the 

 sea; to notice all remarkable phenomena which may serve to charac- 

 terise particular regions of the ocean, more especially the direction, 

 the velocity, the depths, and limits of the currents : special instruc- 

 tions also are given to whalers, to note down the regions where 

 whales are found, and the limits of the range of their different species. 

 A scheme for taking these observations regularly and systematically, 

 was submitted by Lieutenant Maury to the Chief of the Bureau of 

 Ordnance and Hydrography, in 1842, and instantly adopted: de- 

 tailed instructions were given to every American shipmaster, upon 

 his clearing from the Custom-House, accompanied by a request that 

 he would transmit to the proper office, after his return from his 

 voyage, copies of his logs, as far at least as they related to these ob- 

 servations, with a view to their being examined, discussed, and em- 

 bodied in charts of the winds and currents, and in the compilation of 

 sailing directions to every part of the globe. For some years the 

 instructions thus furnished received very little attention, and very 

 few observations were made or communicated; the publication, how- 

 ever, in 1848, of some charts, founded upon the discussion of the scanty 

 materials which had come to hand, or which could be collected from 

 other sources, and which indicated much shorter routes than had 

 hitherto been followed to Rio and other ports of South America, 

 was sufficient to satisfy some of the more intelligent shipmasters of 

 the object and real importance of the scheme, and in less than two 

 years from that time it had received the cordial co-operation of the 

 masters of nearly every ship that sailed. At the present time, there 

 are nearly 1000 masters of ships who are engaged in making these 

 observations ; they receive freely in return the charts of the winds 

 and currents, and the sailing directions which are formed upon them, 

 corrected up to the latest period. 



Short as is the time that this system has been in operation, the 

 results to which it has led have proved of very great importance to 

 the interests of navigation and commerce. The routes to many of 

 the most frequented ports in different parts of the globe have been 

 materially shortened, that to San Francisco in California by nearly 

 one third : a system of southwardly monsoons in the equatorial 

 regions of the Atlantic and on the west coast of America has been 

 discovered ; a vibratory motion of the trade-wind zones, and with 

 their belts of calms and their limits for every month of the year, has 

 been determined ; the course, bifurcations, limits and other phi.no- 



