278 Captain Hail ofii the proper Method of layihtg 
The mode proposed in this notice answers all these questions^ 
and is quite as easy in practice as that in most general use. It 
is so obvious, that I cannot help being sure that it must have oc- 
curred to many practical navigators ; but as I have never met 
with it in any treatise on navigation^ and have never seen a sin- 
gle chart in which the tracks were so laid down, I trust this 
notice will jiiot be considered superfluous. 
The common method is as follows : The ship’s place of each 
day, as estimated from the log-board, is noted on tlie chart ; 
and also the place, as deduced from chronometers and lunar 
obervations. The first is called the Place by Dead Reckon- 
ing, the other the True Place. The line joining the true 
places at noon is called the True Track ; and that joining the 
others is called the Track or course by Dead Reckoning. 
As it happens invariably, that these two tracks separate very 
early in the voyage, and never afterwards come together, un- 
less by accident, it is obvious, that, upon inspecting the chart, 
no information will be afforded as to the point where the cur- 
rent began, or where it ceased, or what was its set, or its velo- 
city : all that we see is, two tracks wandering apart from one 
another, and it always requires some calculation and measurement 
to come at any thing like an estimate of the true effect of the 
current. 
The tracks laid down on some of Mr Arrowsmith’s maps of 
the Atlantic, are on this account altogether useless, although 
inserted expressly to show the effect of the current. And I 
fepeak from experience when I say, that a chart marked in this 
manner, whatever attention may have been paid to it by the 
navigator, leads only to confuse, and not to instruct. 
The method which it is proposed to substitute, is this : Let 
the true place be laid down each day as before, either at noon, 
or, which is better, at the precise moments of observation for 
the longitude. Let a fresh departure be taken from every such 
true place so noted in the chart ; and whenever a true place is 
marked on the chart, let the place by dead reckoning at that 
moment, estimated hy log-hoard from the last true place y be also 
noted down. From each true place let tw^o lines be drawn, 
one to the next true place, and the other to the dead reckoning 
place at the same moment. 
