PERIODICALS
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Nantucket whaling
captains gave Ben
Franklin the data to
prepare this 1769 chart
of the "Gulph Stream."
Courtesy of the American Philosophical Society
to determine exactly when they entered or passed through the stream.
Franklin found 18th-century mariners reluctant to take advice from a
landsman. Modern day scientists, Schmitt observes, recently employed
satellite photographs-not Franklin's charts-in a study aimed at per-
suading capta...