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ately over it, however, may receive so much warmth from it as to be rarefied and rise, being rendered lighter than the air on each side of the stream; hence those airs must flow in to supply the place of the rising warm air, and, meeting with each other, form those tornadoes and water-spouts frequently met with, and seen near and over the stream; and as the vapour from a cup of tea in a warm room and the breath of an animal in the same room, are hardly visible, but become sensible immediately when out in the cold air, so the vapour from the gulph stream, in warm latitudes is scarcely visible, but when it comes into the cool air from Newfoundland, it is condensed into the fogs, for which those parts are so remarkable.

The power of wind to raise water above its common level in the sea is known to us in America, by the high tides occasioned in all our sea-ports when a strong north-easter blows against the gulph stream.

The conclusion from these remarks is, that a vessel from Europe to North America may shorten her passage by avoiding to stem the stream, in which the thermometer will be very useful; and a vessel from America to Europe may do the same by the same means of keeping in it. It may have often happened accidentally, that voyages have been shortened by these circumstances. It is well to have the command of them.

But may there not be another cause, independent of winds and currents, why passages are generally shorter from America to Europe than from Europe to America? This question I formerly considered in the following short paper.

pulse against the water, and probably thence shorten the voyage. Query, In returning does the contrary happen, and is her voyage thereby retarded and lengthened ?"*

Would it not be a more secure method of planking ships, if, instead of thick single planks laid horizontally, we were to use planks of half the thickness, and lay them double and across each other as in figure 23? To me it seems that the difference of expense would not be considerable, and that the ship would be both tighter and stronger.

A full

The securing of the ship is not the only necessary thing; securing the health of the sailors, a brave and valuable order of men, is likewise of great importance. With this view the methods so successfully practised by captain Cook in his long voyages cannot be too closely studied or carefully imitated. account of those methods is found in sir John Pringle's speech, when the medal of the Royal Society was given to that illustrious navigator. I am glad to see in his last voyage that he found the means effectual which I had proposed for preserving flour, bread, &c. from moisture and damage. They were found dry and good after being at sea four years. The method is described in my printed works, page 452, fifth edition. In the same, page 469, 470,† is proposed a means of allaying thirst in case of want of fresh water. This has since been practised in two instances with success. Нарpy if their hunger, when the other provisions are consumed, could be relieved as commodiously; and perhaps in time this may be found not impossible. An addition might be made to their present vegetable provision, by drying various roots in slices by the means of an oven. The sweet potatoe of America and Spain is excellent for this purpose. Other potatoes,

On board the Pennsylvania Packet, Captain with carrots, parsnips, and turnips, might be

Osborne.

At Sea, April 5, 1775. "SUPPOSE a ship to make a voyage eastward from a place in lat. 40° north, to a place in lat. 50° north, distance in longitude 75 de

grees.

"In sailing from 40 to 50, she goes from a place where a degree of longitude is about eight miles greater than in the place she is going to. A degree is equal to four minutes of time; consequently the ship in the harbour she leaves, partaking of the diurnal motion of the earth, moves two miles in a minute faster than when in the port she is going to; which is 120 miles in an hour.

"This motion in a ship and cargo is of great force; and if she could be lifted up suddenly from the harbour in which she lay quiet, and set down instantly in the latitude of the port she was bound to, though in a calm, that force contained in her would make her run a great way at a prodigious rate. This force must be lost gradually in her voyage, by gradual im

prepared and preserved in the same manner

With regard to make-shifts in cases of necessity, seamen are generally very ingenious themselves. They will excuse, however, the mention of two or three. If they happen in any circumstance, such as after shipwreck, taking to their boat, or the like, to want a compass, a fine sewing-needle laid on clear water in a cup will generally point to the north, most of them being a little magnetical, or may be made so by being strongly rubbed or hammered, lying in a north and south direction. If their needle is too heavy to float by itself, it may be supported by little pieces of cork or wood. A man who can swim, may be aided in a long traverse by his handkerchief formed into a kite, by two cross sticks extending to the four corners; which, being raised in the air when the wind is fair and fresh,

* Since this paper was read at the Society, an ingeni. ous member, Mr. Patterson, has convinced the writer that the returning voyage would not, from this cause, † See the Paper referred to in this volume, page 358.

be retarded.

will tow him along while lying on his back. | ment in the mass of stores laid in by him for Where force is wanted to move a heavy body, the passengers, it is good to have some parand there are but few hands and no machines, ticular things in your own possession, so as to a long and strong rope may make owerful be always at your own command. instrument. Suppose a boat is to be drawn up on a beach, that she may be out of the surf; a stake drove into the beach where you would have the boat drawn, and another to fasten the end of the rope to, which comes from the boat, and then applying what force you have to pull upon the middle of the rope at right angles with it, the power will be augmented in proportion to the length of rope between the posts. The rope being fasted to the stake A, and drawn upon in the direction C D, will slide over the stake B; and when the rope is bent to the angle A D B, represented by the pricked line in figure 24, the boat will be at B.

1. Good water, that of the ship being often bad. You can be sure of having it good only by bottling it from a clear spring or well and in clean bottles. 2. Good tea. 3. Coffee ground. 4. Chocolate. 5. Wine of the sort you particularly like, and cyder. 6. Raisins. 7. Almonds. 8. Sugar. 9. Capillaire. 10. Lemons. 11. Jamaica spirits. 12. Eggs greased. 13. Diet bread. 14. Portable soup. 15. Rusks. As to fowls, it is not worth while to have any called yours, unless you could have the feeding and managing of them according to your own judgment under your own eye. As they are generally treated at present in ships, they are for the most part sick, and their flesh tough and hard as whit

Some sailors may think the writer has given himself unnecessary trouble in pretend-leather. All seamen have an opinion, broached ing to advise them; for they have a little repugnance to the advice of land men, whom they esteem ignorant and incapable of giving any worth notice; though it is certain that most of their instruments were the invention of landmen. At least the first vessel ever made to go on the water was certainly such. I will therefore add only a few words more, and they shall be addressed to passengers.

I supposed at first prudently, for saving of water when short, that fowls do not know when they have drank enough, and will kill themselves if you give them too much, so they are served with a little only once in two days. This poured into troughs that lie sloping, and therefore immediately runs down to the lower end. There the fowls ride upon one another's backs to get at it, and some are When you intend a long voyage, you may not happy enough to reach and once dip their do well to keep your intention as much as pos- bills in it. Thus tantalized, and tormented sible a secret, or at least the time of your de- with thirst, they cannot digest their dry food, parture; otherwise you will be continually in- they fret, pine, sicken, and die. Some are terrupted in your preparations by the visits of found dead, and thrown overboard every mornfriends and acquaintance, who will not only ing, and those killed for the table are not eatrob you of the time you want, but put things able. Their troughs should be in little diout of your mind, so that when you come to visions, like cups, to hold the water separatesea, you have the mortification to recollectly, figure 25. But this is never done. The points of business that ought to have been sheep and hogs are therefore your best dedone, accounts you intended to settle, and con-pendence for fresh meat at sea, the mutton veniences you had proposed to bring with being generally tolerable, and the pork exyou, &c. all which have been omitted through cellent. the effect of these officious friendly visits. Would it not be well if this custom could be changed; if the voyager after having, without interruption, made all his preparations, should use some of the time he has left, in going himself, to take leave of his friends at their own houses, and let them come to congratulate him on his happy return.

It is possible your captain may have provided so well in the general stores, as to render some of the particulars above recommended of little or no use to you. But there are frequently in the ship poorer passengers, who are taken at a lower price, lodge in the steerage, and have no claim to any of the cabin provisions, or to any but those kinds that are allowed the sailors. These people are sometimes dejected, sometimes sick, there may be women and children among them. In a situation where there is no going to market, to purchase such necessaries, a few of these your superfluities distributed occasionally may be of great service, restore health, save life, make the miserable happy, and thereby afford you infinite pleasure.

It is not always in your power to make a choice in your captain, though much of your comfort in the passage may depend on his personal character, as you must for so long a time be confined to his company, and under his direction; if he is a sensible, sociable, good natured, obliging man, you will be so much the happier. Such there are; but if he happens to be otherwise, and is only skilful, careful, watchful, and active in the conduct of his The worst thing in ordinary merchant ship, excuse the rest, for these are the essen- ships is the cookery. They have no professtials. ed cook, and the worst hand as a seaman is apWhatever right you may have by agree-pointed to that office, in which he is not only

very ignorant but very dirty. The sailors | transporting slaves, it is clearly the means of have therefore for a saying, that God sends augmenting the mass of human misery. It meat and the devil cooks. Passengers more is amazing to think of the ships and lives piously disposed, and willing to believe Hea- risked in fetching tea from China, coffee from ven orders all things for the best, may sup- Arabia, sugar and tobacco from America, all pose, that, knowing the sea-air and constant which our ancestors did well without. Sugar exercise by the motion of the vessel would employs near one thousand ships, tobacco algive us extraordinany appetites, bad cooks most as many. For the utility of tobacco were kindly sent to prevent our eating too there is little to be said; and for that of sumuch; or that, foreseeing we should have gar, how much more commendable would it bad cooks, good appetites were furnished to be if we could give up the few minutes gratiprevent our starving. If you cannot trust to fication afforded once or twice a day by the these circumstances, a spirit-lamp, with a taste of sugar in our tea, rather than encoublaze-pan, may enable you to cook some little rage the cruelties exercised in producing it. things for yourself; such as a hash, a soup, &c. An eminent French moralist says, that when And it might be well also to have among he considers the wars we excite in Africa to your stores some potted meats, which if well obtain slaves, the numbers necessarily slain put up will keep long good. A small tin in those wars, the many prisoners who perish oven, to place with the open side before the at sea by sickness, bad provisions, foul air, &c. fire, may be another good utensil in which in the transportation, and how many afteryour own servant may roast for you a bit of wards die from the hardships of slavery, he pork or mutton. You will sometimes be in- cannot look on a piece of sugar without conduced to eat of the ship's salt beef, as it is ceiving it stained with spots of human blood! often good. You will find cider the best had he added the consideration of the wars we quencher of that thirst which salt meat or fish make to take and retake the sugar islands occasions. The ship biscuit is too hard for from one another, and the fleets and armies some sets of teeth. It may be softened by that perish in those expeditions, he might toasting. But rusk is better; for being made have seen his sugar not merely spotted, but of good fermented bread, sliced and baked a thoroughly dyed scarlet in grain. It is these second time, the pieces imbibe the water ea- wars that make the maritime powers of Eusily, soften immediately, digest more kindly, rope, the inhabitants of London and Paris, pay and are therefore more wholesome than the dearer for sugar than those of Vienna, a thouunfermented biscuit. By the way, rusk is the sand miles from the sea; because their sugar true original biscuit, so prepared to keep for costs not only the price they pay for it by the sea, biscuit in French signifying twice baked. pound, but all they pay in taxes to maintain If your dry peas boil hard, a two-pound iron the fleets and armies that fight for it.—With shot put with them into the pot, will by the great esteem, I am, sir, your most obedient motion of the ship grind them as fine as mus- humble servant, B. FRANKLIN. tard.

On the Gulph Stream.

land to New York, in order to avoid the Gulph Stream on one hand, and on the other the Shoals that lie to the Southward of Nantucket and of St. George's Banks.

The accidents I have seen at sea with large dishes of soup upon a table, from the motion of the ship, have made me wish, that our pot-Remarks upon the Navigation from Newfound ters or pewterers would make soup dishes in divisions, like a set of small bowls united together, each containing about sufficient for one person, in some such form as fig. 26; for then when the ship should make a sudden heel, the soup would not in a body flow over one side, and fall into people's laps and scald them, as is sometimes the case, but would be retained in the separate divisions, as in figure 27.

After these trifles, permit the addition of a few general reflections. Navigation, when employed in supplying necessary provisions to a country in want, and thereby preventing famines, which were more frequent and destructive before the invention of that art, is undoubtedly a blessing to mankind. When employed merely in transporting superfluities, it is a question whether the advantage of the employment it affords is equal to the mischief of hazarding so many lives on the ocean. But when employed in pillaging merchants and

AFTER you have passed the banks of Newfoundland in about the 44th degree of latitude, you will meet with nothing, till you draw near the Isle of Sables, which we commonly pass in latitude 43. Southward of this isle, the current is found to extend itself as far north as 41° 20' or 30', then it turns towards the E. S. E. or S. E. & E.

Having passed the Isle of Sables, shape your course for the St. George's Banks, so as to pass them in about latitude 40°, because the current southward of those banks reaches as far north as 39°. The shoals of those banks lie in 41° 35.'

After having passed St. George's Banks, you must, to clear Nantucket, form your course so as to pass between the latitudes 38° 30′ and 40° 45'.

The most southern part of the shoals of Nantucket lie in about 40° 45'. The northern part of the current, directly to the south of Nantucket, is felt in about latitude 38° 30'

practice of whaling on the edges of it, from their island quite down to the Bahamas, this draft of that stream was obtained from one of them, captain Folger, and caused to be enBy observing these directions, and keeping graved on the old chart in London, for the bebetween the stream and the shoals, the pas-nefit of navigators, by B. FRANKLIN. sage from the Banks of Newfoundland to New York, Delaware, or Virginia, may be considerably shortened; for so you will have the advantage of the eddy current, which moves contrary to the Gulph Stream. Whereas if to avoid the shoals you keep too far to the southward, and get into that stream, you will be retarded by it at the rate of 60 or 70 miles a day.

The Nantucket whale-men being extremely well acquainted with the Gulph Stream, its course, strength, and extent, by their constant

Note. The Nantucket captains who are acquainted with this stream, make their voyages from England to Boston in as short a time generally as others take in going from Boston to England, viz. from twenty to thirty days.

A stranger may know when he is in the Gulph Stream, by the warmth of the water, which is much greater than that of the water on each side of it. If then he is bound to the westward, he should cross the stream to get out of it as soon as possible. B. F.

Observations of the Warmth of the Sea-water, &c., by Fahrenheit's Thermometer, crossing the Gulph Stream; with other remarks made on board the Pennsylvania to Philadelphia, in April and May, 1775.

Packet, captain Osborne,

bound from

London

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Observations of the warmth of the Sea-Water, &c., by Fahrenheit's Thermometer; with other remarks made on board the Reprisal, captain Wycks, bound from Philadelphia to France, in October and November, 1776.

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