The Gulf Stream is charted to explain slow mail
Asked in 1768 why British mail packets sailing from Falmouth were consistently slower to America than ordinary merchantmen, Benjamin Franklin — then deputy postmaster general for the colonies — put the question to his cousin Timothy Folger, a Nantucket whaling captain, who attributed it to the Gulf Stream. Franklin had Folger sketch the current on a chart of the Atlantic with sailing remarks and sent it to the Post Office in October 1768; the engraved chart was available by early 1769, printed in very small numbers for packet captains. Later versions were printed in Paris around 1780–1783 and in Philadelphia in 1786.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Gulf Stream · natural phenomenon · North Atlantic — Florida Straits to the Grand Banks
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
[Franklin-Folger chart of the Gulf Stream]
The Franklin–Folger Gulf Stream chart exists as a held cartographic item; the 1768 correspondence with Anthony Todd, the 1769 Mount & Page printing, and the later Paris and Philadelphia versions are described in Library of Congress and dealer catalogue accounts read via search summary. Neither the catalogue record nor Richardson's 1980 study of the charts was fetched.
Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division · catalogue record, accessed 2026-08-08 · Partly verified
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g9112g.ct000753/
Recorded on Gulf Stream
- The Gulf Stream is charted to explain slow mail
- Maury issues the Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic
- The Physical Geography of the Sea is published
- The Gulf Stream is found not to explain Europe's mild winters
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.