Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/360

334 the currents were sent forth as pall-bearers, with the command to deposit the dead corpses where the plummet found them.

619. Animalculæ at the surface of the sea.—Fellow-labourers as Foster, and Toynbee, and Piazzi Smyth, are beginning to dip into the surface water of the sea for its animalculæ. They are making interesting discoveries, and have gone quite far enough to show that this field is exceedingly rich, and that labourers in it are greatly needed. 



621. Practical results of physical researches at sea.—, so far as the winds are concerned, is supplemental to Plate I. The former shows the monsoon regions, and indicates the prevailing direction of the winds in every part of the ocean; the latter indicates it generally for any latitude, without regard to any particular sea. Plate VIII. also exhibits the principal routes across the ocean. This plate indicates the great practical results of all the labour connected with this vast system of research; its aim is the improvement of navigation; its end, the shortening of voyages. Other interests and other objects, nay, the great cause of human knowledge, have been promoted by it; but the advancement that has been given to these do not, in this utilitarian age, and in the mind of people so eminently practical as mariners are, stand out in a relief half so grand and imposing as do those achievements by which the distant isles and marts of the sea have, for the convenience of commerce, been lifted up, as it were, and brought closer together by many days' sail.

622. Time-tables.—So to shape the course on voyages as to make the most of the winds and currents at sea is the perfection of the navigator's art. How the winds blow and the currents flow along this route or that, is no longer matter of opinion or subject of speculation, but it is a matter of certainty determined by actual observation. Their direction has been determined for months and for seasons, along many of the principal routes, with all the accuracy of which results depending on the doctrine of