14 CANARY ISLANDS, 



the ocean that the phenomenon in question is to be 

 attributed. 



" This current carries the waters of the Atlantic towards 

 the Mosquito and Honduras coasts, from which they move 

 northward, and passing into the Gulf of Mexico, follow 

 tlie bendings of the shore from Vera Cruz to the mouth of 

 the Rio del Norte, and from thence to the mouths of the 

 Mississippi and the shoals at the southern extremity of 

 Florida. After performing this circuit, it again directs 

 itself northward, rushing with great impetuosity through 

 the Straits of Bahama. At the end of these narrows, in 

 the parallel of Cape Canaveral, the flow, which rushes 

 onward like a torrent, sometimes at the rate of five miles 

 an hour, runs to the north-east. Its velocity diminishes 

 and its breadth enlarges as it proceeds northward. Be- 

 tween Cape Biscayo and the Bank of Bahama, the width is 

 only 5'2 miles, while in 23.5° of lat. it is 50; and in the 

 parallel of Charleston, opposite Cape Henlopen, it is from 

 138 to 173 miles, the rapidity being from three to five miles 

 an hour where the stream is narrow, and only one mile as 

 it advances towards the north. To the east of Boston and 

 in the meridian of Halifax the current is nearly 276 miles 

 broad. Here it suddenly turns towards the east ; its west- 

 ern margin touching the extremity of the great bank of 

 Newfoundland. From this to the Azores it continues to 

 flow to the E. and E.S.E., still retaining part of the im- 

 pulse which it had received nearly 1150 miles distant in 

 the Straits of Florida. In the meridian of the Isles of 

 Corvo and Flores, the most western of the Azores, it is 

 not less than 552 miles in breadth. From the Azores it 

 directs itself towards the Straits of Gibraltar, the island of 

 Madeira, and the Canary Isles. To the south of Madeira 

 we can distinctly follow its motion to the S.E. and S.S.E., 

 bearing on the shores of Africa, between Capes Cantin 

 and Bojador. Cape Blanco, which, next to Cape Verd, 

 farther to the south, is the most prominent part of that 

 coast, seems again to influence the direction of the stream ; 

 and in this parallel it mixes with the great equinoctial cur- 

 rent as already described. 



