Science at sea: charting the Gulf Stream in the late Enlightenment

Abstract

Work on the making of the Enlightenment and on the nature of Enlightenment science has concentrated upon the Pacific. With reference to recent revisionist work on the geographies of the Enlightenment and on the geographies of science, this article examines the ways in which the Atlantic – specifically, the Gulf Stream – was the subject of scientific investigation in the late Enlightenment. Attention is paid to the cartographic representation of the Gulf Stream, to its thermometric study, and to the ways in which understanding of the phenomenon depended upon observation and mariners’ tacit knowledge.