ST. AUGUSTIN TO BAHAMA ISLANDS 255 



i 



siderable, changeable, and not so well known. These 

 are to be observed especially when by reason of strong 

 east winds, the customary channel cannot expedite all 

 the water. Against the Gulf Stream proper no ship 

 can prevail ; hence none can make sail to the south be- 

 tween Florida and the Bahama islands. Only very 

 small craft can creep along, close in-shore where the 

 water is shallow and the force of the mid-current 

 imperceptible or quite absent. 



On the high sea, or in the midst of the Atlantic 

 ocean, it is at times difficult to determine whether one 

 is or is not in the Gulf Stream. To settle this, it is 

 usual now and then to throw over-board some light 

 substance ; if this, with calm or light north and east 

 winds, is carried nevertheless in a northwest course 

 from the ship, it is taken to be proof, though not 

 absolutely decisive, that the ship is in the current. 

 Recently Dr. Blagden, in the Philosoph. Transact., has 

 shown by thermometrical observations that the tem- 



" war has even been fished up on the Scottish coast, that vessel 

 " having been burned off Jamaica in the last war, and this is 

 " a further proof of the opinion stated above." Pennant's Voy- 

 age to the Hebrides 1772. Chester, 1774. p. 232, 233. Ver- 

 mischte Beytrdge zur physikalischen Erdbeschreibung. Vi, no. 

 2. The Gulf Stream should have been particularly mentioned 

 here as the chief means of the long voyage over seas of these 

 West Indian products. Substances of like sort have been 

 found still farther north, on the coasts of Norway and of 

 northern Asia. Vid. Linnaeus, Amoen. acad. Vol. 7, p. 477. 

 The Gulf Stream proper does not indeed extend so far; but 

 where this ceases, other currents and winds act in furtherance. 

 It is however remarkable, and an eloquent proof of the power- 

 ful northwestern draught of the Gulf Stream, that no similar 

 products are cast on the North American coasts, notwithstand- 

 ing the nearness of the West Indies. 



