Ixviii ADVERTISEMENT. 



170 degrees toward the Eaft. Again, it advanced' 

 4 degrees northward, having been picked up two 

 leagues to the North of Arromanches, that is, in 

 49 degrees, 10 minutes Latitude, which makes 

 100 leagues toward the North, and in whole, 270 

 leagues. It employed 266 days in performing this 

 route, from the 17th Auguft 1786 to the 9th of 

 May 1787, which is lefs than a league a day. This 

 velocity, undoubtedly, is not to be compared to 

 that with which the wrecks of the battle of Oftend 

 defcended to the Azores, at the rate of more than' 

 • 35 leagues a day, as has been related in the begin- 

 ning of Vol. I. The Reader might be difpofed to 

 call in queftion the accuracy of Rennefort\ obferva- 

 tion, and at the fame time, the confequence which 

 I have deduced from it, to demonftrate the ve- • 

 locity of the general Current of the Ocean, had 

 1 not elfewheie proved it by many other nautical 

 fads, and were not the Journals of Navigators fil- 

 led with fimilar expériences, which attfeft, that the 

 Currents and Tides frequently carry veflels along, 

 at the rate of three and four miles an hour, nay 

 run with the rapidity oflluices, making from eight 

 to ten leagues an hour, in llraits contiguous to the 

 polar ices in fufion, conformably to the tellimony 

 of Ellh^ of Linfchotten and oï Barents. But 1 venture 

 to affirm, that the flowneis with which the letter; 

 thrown overboard in the entrance of the Bay of 

 i •'■: . , Bifcay; 



