Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/17

 Rh interest or pleasure in a perusal of these passages, will lend their assistance to the carrying out of this plan, by advocating it among their friends. These researches for the land look not only to the advancement of the great interests of sanitary and agricultural meteorology, but they involve also a study of the laws which regulate the atmosphere, and call for a careful investigation of all its phenomena.

Another beautiful feature in this system is, that it costs nothing additional. The instruments that these observations at sea call for are such as are already in use on board of every well-conditioned ship, and the observations that are required are precisely those which are necessary for her safe and proper navigation.

As great as is the value attached to what has been accomplished by these researches in the way of shortening passages and lessening the dangers of the sea, a good of higher value is, in the opinion of many seamen, yet to come out of the moral, the educational influence which they are calculated to exert upon the seafaring community of the world. A very clever English ship-master, speaking recently of the advantages of educational influences among those who intend to follow the sea, remarks:

"To the cultivated lad there is a new world spread out when he enters on his first voyage. As his education has fitted, so will he perceive, year by year, that his profession makes him acquainted with things new and instructive. His intelligence will enable him to appreciate the contrasts of each country in its general aspect, manners, and productions, and in modes of navigation adapted to the character of coast, climate, and rivers. He will dwell with interest on the phases of the ocean, the storm, the calm, and the breeze, and will look for traces of the laws which regulate them. All this will induce a serious earnestness in his work, and teach him to view lightly those irksome and often offensive duties incident to the beginner."

And that these researches do have such an effect many noble-hearted mariners have testified. Captain Phinney, of the American ship "Gertrude," writing from Callao, January, 1855, thus expresses himself: