ABSTRACT
IN June 1661 the Royal Society approved a list of observations which, it was hoped, the Earl of Sandwich would carry out during his voyage to the Mediterranean1 (see Appendix, pp. 407-408). One of the instructions read as follows: try whether in the middle of the Straits the surface water flow eastward, whilst the lower part of it runs westward. Scientists had at some stage already become aware that the water movements in the Strait of Gibraltar would repay closer study.
