THE GULF-STREAM. 57 
easterly direction, between the tropic of Capricorn and the 
mouth of the La Plata river, beyond the limits of the trade- 
winds. Its traces show themselves to the south-east of the Cape 
of Good Hope, and are finally lost far in the Indian Ocean. 
The northern arm of the equatorial stream flows along the 
north-eastern coast of South America; constantly raising its 
temperature under the influence of a tropical sun, and progress- 
ing with a rapidity of a hundred miles in twenty-four hours (six 
feet and a half in-a second), after having been joined by the 
waters of the Amazon river. Thus it continues to flow to the 
east, until the continent of Central America opposes an in- 
vineible barrier to its farther progress in this direction, and 
compels it to follow the windings of the coast of Costa Rica, 
Mosquitos, Campeche, and Tabasco. It then performs a vast 
circuit along the shores of the Mexican Gulf, and finally 
emerges through the Straits of Bahama into the open ocean. 
Here it assumes a new name, and forms what navigators call 
the Gulf-stream, a rapid current of tepid water, which, flowing 
in a diagonal direction, recedes farther and farther from the 
coast of North America as it advances to the north-east. Under 
tke forty-first degree of latitude it suddenly bends to the east, 
gradually diminishing in swiftness, and at the same time in- 
creasing in width. 
Thus it flows across the Atlantic, to the south of the great 
bank of Newfoundland, where Humboldt found the temperature 
of its stream several degrees higher than that of the neighbour- 
ing and tranquil waters, which form, as it were, the banks of the 
warm oceanic current. Ere it reaches the western Azores, it 
divides into two arms, one of which is driven, partly by the 
natural impulse of its stream, but principally by the prevail- 
ing westerly and north-westerly winds, towards the coasts of 
Europe; while the other, flowing towards the Canary Islands and 
the western coast of Africa, finally returns into the equatorial 
current. 
In this manner the waters are brought back to the point from 
which they came, after having performed a vast circuit of 20,000 
miles, which it took them nearly three years to accomplish. 
According to Humboldt’s calculations, a boat left to the current, 
and moving along without any other assistance, would require 
about thirteen months to float from the Canary Islands to the 
