cause their sugar costs not only the price they pay for it by the pound, but all they pay in taxes to maintain the fleets and armies that fight for it.*

With great esteem, I am, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.

APPENDIX TO THE ABOVE LETTER.

Remarks upon the Navigation from Newfoundland to New York, in Order to avoid the Gulf Stream on one Hand, and, on the other, the Shoals that lie to the southward of Nantucket and of St. George's Banks.

READ AT A MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL

SOCIETY, DECEMBER 2D, 1785.

After you have passed the banks of Newfoundland in about the forty-fourth 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

Several of the closing paragraphs of this letter are the same in substance, as the piece entitled, "Precautions to be used by those, who are about to undertake a Sea Voyage," Vol. II. p. 106. — Editor.

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

By observing these directions, and keeping between the stream and the shoals, the passage 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 Gulf 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 sixty or seventy miles a day.

The Nantucket whalemen being extremely well acquainted with the Gulf Stream, its course, strength, and extent, by their constant practice of whaling on the edges of it, from their island quite down to the Bahamas, this draft of that stream [Plate XIII.] was obtained from one of them, Captain Folger, and caused to be engraved on the old chart in London, for the benefit of navigators, by

B. FRANKLIN.

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 Gulf 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.

VOL. VI.

63

B. FRANKLIN.

PP*

from London to Philadelphia, in April and May, 1775. made on board the Pennsylvania Packet, Captain Osborne, bouna Observations of the Warmth of the Sea Water, &c., by Fahrenheit's Thermometer, in crossing the Gulf Stream; with other Remarks

S

May

Captain Wickes, bound from Philadelphia to France, in October Thermometer; with other Remarks made on board the Reprisal, Observations of the Warmth of the Sea Water, &c., by Fahrenheit's

and November, 1776.

7

Some sparks in the water these two last nights.

Do.

88

58

8

Do.

55

55 3

E. b. N.

S. 50 E.

35 33

53 52

S. E. b. E. N. 30 W.

36

6

52 46

S. b. E.

N. 49 E.