Al -

I copied your message and inserted my answers. Thank you very much for the detailed and insightful response!

OK. Let me just shoot in the dark and try to deduce if those #s are related to any 'position' fix or bearings. 'Made' on a vessel generally means 'achieved' or 'covered distance' as in 'made two miles to weather' or ' made E by NE for two hours' etc. The #s are not increasing in a linear manner so that eliminates a Walker log or any speed /distance device. The #s- as you mentioned - are not Lat / Long if there are normal day entries giving both Latitude and Longitude in plain script. Are there? No

Compass bearing? No. Universally three digits not four back then.- Eliminates tacking to weather also. Was it a simple flag or morse code message 'made' from another vessel? Possibility** If the word 'spoke' and a name is used surrounding the #s this increases this possibility**.A civil war navy buff would probably have those codes. Apart from Military necessity, Is there any reason for any Ships officer to use a code for this one particular entry? Probably not. So is the event being recorded normal procedure (but unique,) to the two weeks or so of the Log you have? Does that particular log entry have different handwriting to surrounding entries? No

If not, what unique event occured that needed recording? Depth soundings? Slim, but a Possibility** Was is overcast,foggy or too rough for sunsights and soundings had to be used? Is this theory supported by other weather entries? (The Civil war pilots had excellent 'bottom composition' knowledge of that coast, and had wax or tallow on their sounding leads for bottom samples.)

The entry in question actually ends with a record of depth (18 fathoms)

Was this a Steam assisted paddle wheel vessel? RPM of paddlewheels and pressure of the boilers? Again the use of four digits weaken this as Steam pressue rarely exceeded a few hundred lbs or so and RPM's were only in the hundreds. It was a screw steamer.

Were they sight reduction preparations? Navigators of that period would pre-select azimuth (direction) and altitude (height) of certain celestial bodies, stars etc, for the next morning dawn sights. Those #s you supplied all being less than 90 but more than 10 for the first two digits might be 'pre selects' but 'only' if all the bodies being observed were North of true east.- Possible* but not too realistic.. There must be times indicated on the left margin Soundings can be time consuming even with a steam winch. What time period does the log indicate? 1-4 pm

Good luck. Al THANKS! - Tom