英语词汇gulf stream的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

Gulf Stream. An old yarn has it that the redoubtable Ben- jamin Franklin—who discovered so many other things—intro- duced sailors to the use of the Gulf Stream in the westward crossing of the Atlantic. This familiar story claims that when Franklin was deputy postmaster for the colonies in 1770 the British treasury asked him why British postal packets took two weeks or so longer to reach New York than merchantmen did in sailing from London to Boston and to Providence, Rhode Is- land. Franklin, so the tale goes, consulted his cousin, Captain Timothy Folger, a Nantucket whaleman of long experience, who quickly told him of the influence of the Gulf Stream, ad- vising him that the postal packets commanded by Britishers always bucked the Gulf Stream, whereas the merchantmen, commanded by Rhode Islanders, had long since been taught by American whalemen that one did not resist the Gulf Stream in its eastward flow. Actually, British explorer William Dampier had written about the Gulf Stream in his Discoveries on the Trade Winds a century earlier, and British mariners were quite familiar with it. The real explanation for the delay of the mail packets was their notoriously laggard captains, who took their own sweet time—there being no bonus for speed—and often trusted their ships to inexperienced mates. Franklin did talk to his cousin and had him draw a crude chart of the Gulf Stream, which Franklin later published. He and his cousin probably were responsible for speeding up the mail service back in 1770—if only by embarrassing the British captains—but they certainly didn’t discover the Gulf Stream. See current; franklin.

词汇	gulf stream
词源	Gulf Stream. An old yarn has it that the redoubtable Ben- jamin Franklin—who discovered so many other things—intro- duced sailors to the use of the Gulf Stream in the westward crossing of the Atlantic. This familiar story claims that when Franklin was deputy postmaster for the colonies in 1770 the British treasury asked him why British postal packets took two weeks or so longer to reach New York than merchantmen did in sailing from London to Boston and to Providence, Rhode Is- land. Franklin, so the tale goes, consulted his cousin, Captain Timothy Folger, a Nantucket whaleman of long experience, who quickly told him of the influence of the Gulf Stream, ad- vising him that the postal packets commanded by Britishers always bucked the Gulf Stream, whereas the merchantmen, commanded by Rhode Islanders, had long since been taught by American whalemen that one did not resist the Gulf Stream in its eastward flow. Actually, British explorer William Dampier had written about the Gulf Stream in his Discoveries on the Trade Winds a century earlier, and British mariners were quite familiar with it. The real explanation for the delay of the mail packets was their notoriously laggard captains, who took their own sweet time—there being no bonus for speed—and often trusted their ships to inexperienced mates. Franklin did talk to his cousin and had him draw a crude chart of the Gulf Stream, which Franklin later published. He and his cousin probably were responsible for speeding up the mail service back in 1770—if only by embarrassing the British captains—but they certainly didn’t discover the Gulf Stream. See current; franklin.
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