would not:it all like to be interfered vith.
The idea of an uniform system of
observation, carried out by all countries in
their ships, the same society approved,
and to this, therefore, the assent of England
to the American suggestion was confined. In
deference to the Royal Society, Lieutenant
Maury limited his proposal to this, when
there was established afterwards a conference
of practical and learned men of all nations,
which met last year at Brussels, in the months
of August and September, to discuss the
subject. Enough was then said to prove that
our Royal Society underrated the liberal
dispositions of philosophers in Europe. An
uniform system of land observations would
have been readily agreed upon; but inasmuch
as that question lay beyond the declared
purpose of the conference, it was not formally
discussed; and, after planning a model form
of log for the tabular record of those matters
from which it was most important that each
sailor should bring information home, the
conference was closed. The form of log
recommended by the conference was to be
applied to use in the navies of the chief
European states; and though the employment
of it was never to be made binding
upon merchant officers, yet the voluntary use
of it by them was to be encouraged to the
utmost. For the sake, therefore, both of
providing such encouragement and qualifying
merchant seamen to observe, the American
government undertakes that every merchant
vessel carrying the Brussels log, and filling up
punctually not necessarily the whole, but
at least a certain number of its column,
its barometer and thermometer being
compared with standard instruments, shall
be officially and gratuitously supplied
with all the nautical works which its
observations help to make. They go out
fitted up with instruments by private
enterprise, supplied by the state with all the
newest charts; there are a thousand such
trading vessels as we have said already in the
service of the United States; and so we have
already the sea dotted with floating
observatories.

For having given the first strong pull in
this excellent direction, it is our duty heartily
to express our obligations to America. But
merchant seamen in this country do not mean
to be inactive. Obstinate and ignorant skippers
still exist, of course, on each side of the
Atlantic, but the men who make themselves
heard abroad and at home are they who are
working hard for the development of their
profession. A handsome work has been
lately issued by an English captain, who has
commanded six or seven trading vessels, and
commands now one of the Peninsular and
Oriental steamers—Captain Methven. It is
a book called The Log of a Merchant Officer,
describing what a sea life is, and what it
ought to be, what a log is, and what it
ought to be, presenting at the close a real log
in facsimile, elementary in its teaching, agreeable
in its style, pleasantly embellished by
the author's pencil, and just costly enough to
make it valued by the young gentleman who,
having made up his mind to go to sea, shall
have received it as a present from some
thoughtful uncle. So much we undertake to
say of it, though we are not reviewers.
Captain Methven's whole purpose seems to
us to be the hastening of the day when the
profession of the sailor shall be what we have
a right to call a learned man. Sir William
Reid, who, by his work on Storms, ranks with
the first of those whose labours tend to this
essential and inevitable end, says of the
mercantile marine that "he can imagine few
pursuits of a higher kind than this," and,
pointing out how "the increasing application
of science to practical navigation calls for new
acquirements in the sea commander,"
expresses cordial appreciation of Captain
Methven's efforts. And Dr. Lyon Playfair,
ushering the Captain's book into the world,
adds, still in the same vein, "Certainly there
is no profession embracing a higher kind
of knowledge than that of the seaman. Even
in its most limited range there is a necessity
for an empirical if not a rational acquaintance
with the fundamental truths of physical
geography, astronomy, mathematics,
mechanics, magnetism, meteorology, and the laws
of health. In advancing competition, scientific
knowledge, in every trade and profession,
has become the condition for true success,
both among individuals and nations."

We therefore warn young men going, or
just gone to sea, that the vocation of the
unlearned sailor is departing, and that they
must qualify themselves, so that they may
hold their ground under a new order of
things. As hints to them we will not intrude
any impertinent ideas of our own, but take
advantage of the experience of Captain Methven,
and cite three or four of his suggestions.

In the first place we will call attention to
the fact that although the ships at the port
of Blackwall oiler more advantages than
perhaps any other to young gentlemen who
"go to sea," yet of all the lads of good
connexion who have entered on a sea-life at that
port during the last fifteen years, not twenty
have risen to the command of a ship. Why
do the youths fail? For want of right
preliminary training. The men, again, who
really have risen to command, have, as a
class, not been equal to their duties. The
standard set up for captains of the old Indiamen,
is rarely reached by men who go out
in command of vessels as to size, model, and
canvas, far superior to those old Indiamen,
and carrying crews that increase by a great
deal the weight of responsibility.
Shipbuilding, and ship-commanding have not kept
pace with each other,—one has advanced, the
other has, in some respects stepped backward.
All quick eyes, however, are now well on the
alert; other days are coming for the