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Very nice map, Jim, and very interesting commentary Trevor. Regarding
New Orleans, this may have been mostly U.S. flag shipping. The CLIWOC
database appears to list only ships from Great Britain, Spain, France
and the Netherlands, as Trevor indicatee; the project was funded by the
European Union. That might explain the lack of trade south the Gulf of
Guinea in Africa, which would have been Portugese, I expect. As an
example of this bias, note the fairly intense traffic to Mexico and
none to New Orleans. Certainly by the 1840s, New Orleans was a major
port, and really, had been a major port even before the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803 or thereabouts, but most definitely after that.
Cotton had taken off by 1830 or 1840 in the Mississippi Delta (the
flood plain along the river in the state of Mississippi on its eastern
bank, Arkansas on its western bank, and south into Louisiana on both
banks, not the actual delta of the river). The omission of U.S.
shipping also might explain the paucity of reports from the southeast
Pacific. Hopefully, additional nations will contribute data to this
project.
Fred
On Aug 23, 2004, at 5:44 PM, Trevor J. Kenchington wrote:
> Jim wrote:
>
>> This fascinating image from that website shows all the positions of
>> the
>> available observations in the CLIWOC database for the period
>> 1750-1854,
>> thereby indicating global "western nation" shipping routes and ship
>> traffic
>> volumes of the era:
>> http://www.knmi.nl/cliwoc/images/all_ships0.jpg
>
>
> What a remarkable map! Not quite all the shipping routes, as it is only
> those for which the map makers had logbooks available, but still
> remarkable.
>
> 1850 was before Maury, so ships were running their easting down across
> the Indian Ocean in the 30s of latitude, instead of following Great
> Circle routes.
>
> It was also almost before the California trade took off in '49, while
> the very limited Australian trade still went home round Good Hope, not
> the Horn. Hence the Pacific was almost empty, save for the wanderings
> of
> the whaling fleets.
>
> Japan hadn't been opened to trade but it is interesting that so many
> vessels ran to Batavia but so few went on to China. Or maybe the opium
> clippers just didn't leave logbooks.
>
> The trade to Indian still ran mostly to Calcutta and Madras. Bombay's
> rise to dominance presumably came with the opening of Suez twenty years
> after the cut-off date for the map.
>
> Within the Atlantic, the dominance of European trade is still evident,
> before the vast economic expansion of the U.S.A. later in the 19th
> century. Pre-Maury, the New York to Liverpool or the Channel trade is
> seen following approximately the rumb line course, instead of getting
> north of the Gulf Stream and onto the Great Circle.
>
> Only two voyages to or from the Mississippi. Had the cotton trade from
> Mobile and New Orleans not developed by 1850 or have the logbooks just
> not survived?
>
> In the north, the route of the Hudson's Bay Company ships is easily
> seen, as are the voyages of the Spitzbergen whalers. But the map makers
> seem not to have consulted the logbooks of the Davis Strait whale
> fleet.
>
> But the lack of records from the Mediterranean, Baltic, English Channel
> etc. must result from the map makers deliberately excluding those
> areas.
>
>
> Fascinating!
>
>
> Trevor Kenchington
>
>
> --
> Trevor J. Kenchington PhD
> Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250
> R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251
> Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555
>
> Science Serving the Fisheries
> http://home.istar.ca/~gadus
>
