EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. IxiU 



It was not the wind, fiirely» which hurried thofe frag- 

 ments toward the South-Well with fo much rapidity : the 

 prevailing wind, at that feafon, was contrary to them. 

 ^r;7«r/s//'s fquadron, which had juft met them, were fcn- 

 iible of no other wind, but that which was carrying them 

 to the North-Eaft ; and De Ruyter, in his difpatches, makes 

 mentioft only of the South-Welt winds, which blew during 

 the engagment. Befides, as has been formerly obferved, 

 what hold could the winds have of bodies, level with the 

 water ? Much lefs could they have been carried fouthward, 

 by the tides, which then fet in to the North, on our coalls : 

 it muft have been, therefore, a diredl Current from the 

 North which carried them to the South, even in oppofition 

 to the tides, and fomewhat to the Weft, by the diredlion of 

 the Atlantic channel. The Atlantic Current, therefore, 

 fets in to the South, in Summer, notwithftanding the pre- 

 tended adion of the Moon between the Tropics, and it's 

 courfe, at that feafon, can be afcribed only to the melting 

 of the northern polar ices. 



Thefe two obfervations, fo authentic, farther confirm a 

 pofition elfewhere laid down, that iflands are placed at the 

 extremities of currents. Linjchotteriy who had fojourned at 

 the Azores, remarks, that the fragments of moft of the 

 Ihipwrecks fufïered in the Atlantic Ocean are thrown upon 

 their coafts. The fame thing happens on the fhores of the 

 Bermudas, on thofe of Barbadoes, &c. Thefe floating bo- 

 dies are wafted to prodigious diftances, regularly and aiter- 

 Jiately, as the Currents of the Ocean themfelves are- The 

 feeds of the illand of Jamaica are, accordingly, conveyed, 

 in Winter, as far as the Orkneys, that is more than 1060 

 leagues from South to North, and a diftance of more than 

 1800 leagues, by the flux, of the South Pole; and, beyond 



a doubt/ 



