May 16, 1884.] 
settled down on the bolts, the sides retaining 
their form. There would have been little or 
no harm arising from this ; but the edges of the 
drum drew away from the sides, leaving suffi- 
cient space for a turn or two of wire, which be- 
came so firmly fixed in wheeling in, that it 
would part before clearing itself when sound- 
ing. This condition was caused, probably, by 
slack turns from time to time, when taking very 
deep soundings. 
We were unable to examine the bar at the 
mouth of the Magdalena River because of the 
high winds. 
The government of the republic and people 
of Barranquilla realize the necessity of provid- 
ing a more practicable outlet for their great 
river ; and, with this end in view, surveys have 
been made for a deep-water terminus of the 
Bolivar railway. 
We left Savanilla at 8.15 a.m. on the 22d, 
and ran a line of soundings west 52’, to the 
position in which the U.8.8S. Powhatan re- 
ported shoal-water, where we found 1,175 
fathoms, the water having deepened regularly 
since leaving port. From this point we ran a 
line south 40’, and being then 16’ west by north 
from Cartagena lighthouse, in 825 fathoms, we 
stood offshore west-south-west 43’, then south- 
south-east 51’, to a point 7’ north-west of Fuerte 
Island, where wefound 38 fathoms. Soundings 
were taken at intervals of 10’ to 15’ since leay- 
ing Savanilla: the change in depth was gradu- 
al, making it extremely improbable that shoals 
exist outside of the shore reefs. At 3.30 P.M. 
we started on a line west, sounding at intervals 
of 5’ to 20’, crossing the bay at the bottom of 
which lies the Gulf of Darien. At 4 p.m. we 
cast the trawl in 42 fathoms, green mud, lati- 
tude 9° 30’ 15” north, longitude 76° 20’ 30” 
west, and at 4.55 another haul was made in 
155 fathoms, green mud, latitude 9° 30’ 45” 
north, longitude 76° 25’ 30” west, both hauls 
furnishing us with a small number of good 
specimens. 
The line was continued, sounding at various 
intervals, to Aspinwall, where we arrived at 
2.55 p.M., March 25. The strict quarantine 
observed in this port, because of suspected 
yellow-fever, will, of course, prevent our natural- 
ists from making collections which I expected 
would be the most fruitful owing to the facility 
with which they could reach the interior by the 
railroad. The return home of Ensign A. A. 
Ackerman will restrict our investigations, as 
he has taken the branches of geology and min- 
eralogy during the cruise. 
We expect to sail to-morrow, April 2, run- 
ning a line of soundings to Old Providence 
SCIENCE. 
593 
Island, thence to Cape San Antonio, and to 
arrive in Key West about the 14th instant. 
[See Notes for account of the next cruise. | 
THE OLDER WIND-CHARTS OF THE 
INWORLA ATLANTIC, 
THE series of charts of the North Atlantic now 
in preparation at our hydrographic office, of which 
three monthly sheets are just issued, recalls the 
famous work of Lieut. Maury, thirty years ago, with 
which our approach to a precise knowledge of ocean 
meteorology began. Current-charts go back to 1678, 
when the first one for the Atlantic was published by 
Kircher,! and the general circulation of winds was 
roughly shown as long ago as in the map by Dampier,? 
of a little later date ; but these, and all their succes- 
sors down to comparatively recent years, were based 
only on general records, and not on the systematic 
apportionment of observations to definitely limited 
small areas of the ocean. The method of ‘squaring’ 
observations began with the English hydrographer, 
Rennell, about 1830, but was not then carried very 
far, and waited for its full expansion till taken up 
by the enthusiastic Maury. The remarkable series 
of charts published by him about 1850, for the Atlan- 
ticand Pacific Oceans, marks an epoch not only in our 
knowledge of the ocean, but in the progress of induc- 
tive meteorology; and the greater number of wind 
and current charts published since that time are 
taken very closely from his results. 
The improvement in this kind of work during the 
past fifty years has been not only towards greater 
accuracy, as permitted by the increase in the number 
of observations, but also in the method of charting, 
in which the aim has been to reproduce in a compact 
form, as clearly and fully as possible, all the original 
records, so that the navigator may recognize not only 
the average of the conditions of air and sea that 
he is to encounter, but the separate elements from 
which the averages are derived. Maury evidently 
perceived the importance of thus exhibiting observa- 
tions as nearly as possible in their separate forms, 
instead of in the inaccurate generalizations of his 
predecessors; and this led him to the construction of 
the most realistic charts of the ocean that have ever 
been published. Not only the winds and currents 
were plotted in their place of observation, but the 
track and name of the vessel from whose log they 
were taken were mapped also. A small part of one 
of the North Atlantic wind and current charts is 
here reproduced in fig. 1, omitting certain details 
concerning the strength of the winds, as well as the 
colors by which the seasons were distinguished. The 
full, broken, and dotted lines indicate months within 
the seasons. Nothing could be better adapted to em- 
phasizing the reality of the work in the mind of the 
average sea-captain; and the result of the ingenious 
device was soon apparent in the general interest ex- 
1 Ath. Kircheri, Mundus subterraneus. Edit. tert. Am- 
stelod., 1678, i. 134. 
2 Discourse on the trade-winds, in his Voyages. London 
1705. 
