On his voyage to America Franklin was wondering about the sea around him. Soon after setting down his speculation on the speed of ships (the preceding document) he, or perhaps his grandson under his direction, began to record the temperature of the water. For the first four days it varied little, and perhaps for that reason the readings were abandoned for the next eleven days. They were resumed on the 26th, and from the 28th were made at various times of day and evening, accompanied by other observations, until the ship was at or near the mouth of the Delaware. From these data the following table was compiled. The manuscript has been lost, and the table did not appear in print until more than a decade later.9 Hence we do not know when the data collected on shipboard were cast in their present form, but the form has no bearing on their significance. For years Franklin had been interested in the Gulf Stream.1 Now for the first time he had the evidence to detect it. “Besides the gulph weed with which it is interspersed,” he wrote years later in the light of this and subsequent evidence, “I find that it is always warmer than the sea on each side of it, and that it does not sparkle in the night.”2