ABSTRACT
The expansion of European trade around the world that occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was unparalleled in its extent and swiftness. And as the late seventeenth century began to see capitalist economic imperatives emerging, especially in Britain, to push for ever-greater rates of growth, the would-be utilitarian natural philosophers of the Royal Society saw the need to assist in making nautical trade ever more efficient. Detailed knowledge of trade winds was a desideratum that could make a huge difference to the return to Europe of ships laden with cargo from eastern Asia; unanticipated monsoons could delay a departure for many months. In this chapter, Edmond Halley, friend of Newton's and predictor of cometary orbits, attempts to reduce global trading movements to order by making use of information, including that gleaned from oral sources, regarding the winds and their annual schedules.
