4 



ON THE CAUSES OF THE 



unless the alleged depths of the oceanic currents can be con- 

 sidered one. But it will be admitted that the weight of the 

 water will cause it to press on the solid bottom of the sea, 

 however deep or shallow the water may be, with a force 

 proportioned to the weight ; and it has not been shewn that 

 that weight will be insufficient to enable the solid earth to 

 carry the fluid water with it, and thus to cause both to move 

 with a velocity which, with reference to our present subject, 

 may be considered equal. The assumption, therefore, that 

 the water will be left behind the land, being unsupported by 

 specific evidence, may at present be treated as unproved and 

 unfounded. Of the facts that are furnished there is no doubt, 

 as these oceanic currents are well known to exist ; it is there- 

 fore of the causes alone that we have to treat, and the great 

 cause is stated by these writers to be the rotation of the 

 surface of the globe making the solid land move faster than 

 the liquid water that rests upon it, which is therefore said to 

 be left behind in its rotation, making an apparent current. 



Now, if the rotation of the solid earth really left the water 

 behind, we should have an apparent western current flowing 

 across every part of the open tropical seas, and therefore 

 across not only the Pacific and Atlantic, but also across the 

 Indian Ocean, near the Equator, say from Sumatra to Ajan 

 and Zanguebar on the eastern side of Africa. This ocean is 

 as wide as the Atlantic near to the equator, and therefore 

 would allow the land to pass eastward from the water, if it 

 could so pass, quite as well as in the Atlantic. But there is 

 no such current in this- part of the Indian Ocean; on the 

 contrary, the currents that are found in this locality flow 

 towards the east rather than to the west. • 



On the opposite side of the Continent of Africa, however, 

 there is a very decided oceanic current, but it flows from the 

 west to the east, just in the opposite direction to those 

 " currents of rotation" of which we have been speaking. This 

 current is generally spoken of as being very extraordinary. 



