> A contract for cotton "to arrive" was a contract for forward delivery, or, as it is sometimes called, a "time contract". One might expect that such a contract would normally specify a time for delivery. For it is the moment when the goods become available in the market that is of paramount importance to the purchaser, particularly if the purchaser wants the goods for use. But the world in which such contracts originated was one in which this was not really possible. Although one could discover, after an interval, when a sailing ship had left or, more approximately, proposed to leave its port of departure, it was very uncertain when, if ever, it would arrive at its destination. Even when it did arrive, there were uncertain delays in finding a berth to unload its cargo. Hence such contracts did not originally specify the time of arrival, much less delivery, even within some fixed period. All they did was to identify which shipment of cotton was being sold; presumably the rationale of this was that the buyer, so long as he knew which shipment was being sold, would be able to form his own estimate of the probable time of arrival. This would not, of course, be a point in time but a period. It is said that originally such contracts were made only when arrival was imminent, the ship typically having been reported off Point Lynas, which is on the north coast of Anglesey, some fifty miles from Liverpool. Presumably there was a signal station there. No doubt also cotton was sometimes sold as the ship lay in the river, waiting to berth. In such cases the date of delivery could be guessed with some precision, though a square-rigged vessel, if it did not employ a steam tug, could take a long and unpredictable time to cover even fifty miles.

The author also provides the broader context, which is that this was likely a form contract in the nascent commodity futures market. Additionally, this occurred during a period of particularly overheated speculation in cotton. In other words, just as is common today, financial speculators were pushing the legal and technological envelope of the instruments available to them. (Futures markets go back much further, but the mid-19th century is in many respects when modern futures markets began to take on their current shape. He cites another source pointing out that in "'in certain offices in Liverpool today the futures department is still called the Arrivals Department.'")