60 
THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
They therefore asked that the Falmouth packets might be sent to 
Providence instead of to Boston. This appeared strange to the 
doctor, for London was much farther than Falmouth, and from Fal- 
mouth the routes were the same, and the difference should have 
been the other way. He, however, consulted Captain Folger, a 
Nantucket whaler, who chanced to be in London also ; the fish- 
erman explained to him that the difference arose from the circum- 
stance that the Rhode Island captains were acquainted with the 
Gulf Stream, while those of the English packets were not. The 
latter kept in it, and were set back sixty or seventy miles a day, 
while the former avoided it altogether. He had been made ac- 
quainted with it by the whales which were found on either side of 
it, but never in it 65). At the request of the doctor, he then 
traced on a chart the course of this stream from the Straits of 
Florida. The doctor had it engraved at Tower Hill, and sent 
copies of it to the Falmouth captains, who paid no attention to it. 
The course of the Gulf Stream, as laid down by that fisherman 
from his general recollection of it, has been retained and quoted 
on the charts for navigation, we may say, until the present day. 
But the investigations of which we are treating are beginning 
to throw more light upon this subject ; they are giving us more 
correct knowledge in every respect with regard to it, and to many 
other new and striking features in the physical geography of the 
sea. 
79. No part of the world affords a more difficult or dangerous 
navigation than the approaches of our northern coast in winter. 
Before the warmth of the Gulf Stream was known, a voyage at 
this season from Europe to New England, New York, and even 
to the Capes of the Delaware or Chesapeake, was many times 
more trying, difficult, and dangerous than it now is. In making 
this part of the coast, vessels are frequently met by snow-storms 
and gales which mock the seaman's strength and set at naught his 
skill. In a little while his bark becomes a mass of ice ; with her 
crew frosted and helpless, she remains obedient only to her helm, 
and is kept away for the Gulf Stream. After a few hours' run, 
she reaches its edge, and almost at the next bound passes from the 
midst of winter into a sea at summer heat. Now the ice disap- 
pears from her apparel ; the sailor bathes his stiffened limbs in tep- 
id waters; feeling himself invigorated and refreshed with the 
