254 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



first, by which the water of the ocean is incessantly 

 driven among the West Indian islands through to the 

 Mexican Gulf and there heaped up. The water here 

 being opposed on all sides by the main-land, which 

 checks its further course to the west, and that nearest 

 the land being pressed upon heavily and continually by 

 what follows, there remains no outlet by which the 

 Mexican gulf can rid itself of the water ever accumu- 

 lating in it, except through the narrow channel be- 

 tween the eastern coast of Florida and the northern 

 Bahama islands, a channel in the average not above 

 30 sea-miles wide. Since through this comparatively 

 narrow channel there must be emptied the great 

 quantity of water always forcing in, the current re- 

 ceives a considerable rapidity and strength which it 

 still shows high up in the western and northern 

 ocean.* 



Springing from the same causes there are, among 

 others of the West India and Bahama islands, other 

 water-tows or currents, holding north, but less con- 



* The effect of the Gulf Stream extends even to the most 

 northern parts of Europe, seen in foreign substances there 

 washed up. Vid. Hans Sloane, De fructibus Indicis qui solent 

 ad Orcadum littora adpellere. Phil. Trans, n. 222. And Pen- 

 nant's account of the Molucca beans, so-called, in the Hebri- 

 des, or western Islands of Scotland. " These are the seeds of 

 "the Mimosa scandens, Dolichos urens, Guilandina Bonduc, 

 " Bonducella &c, which grow in plenty on the banks of the 

 " streams of Jamaica, and are carried down in the water to 

 " the sea. By currents and the prevailing East wind they are 

 " brought into the Bay of Florida and thence into the North 

 " American ocean. In the ocean for two thirds of the year 

 " west winds blow, which finally cast these seeds on the 

 " shores of the Hebrides. At times, American turtles are 

 " caught there ; and a piece of the mast of the Tilbury ship of 



