58 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
Caribbean Sea as far as Caraccas. From Caraccas to the 
Straits of Florida, it would remain another ten months on the 
way, for though the direct distance is but short, the current has 
to perform an enormous circuit of 2500 miles, and flows but 
slowly in those confined seas. But the accumulated waters 
having now to force their passage through the narrow channel 
between Cuba and the Bahama Islands on one side, and Florida 
on the other, attain so considerable a velocity, that the whole 
distance from the Havannah to the Bank of Newfoundland, is 
traversed in forty days. During this passage the Gulf-stream 
particularly deserves its name, and is easily distinguished from 
the surrounding waters by its higher temperature and its vivid 
dark blue colour. Numerous marine animals of the tropical 
seas,— the flying fish, the neat velella, the purple ianthina, the 
crosier nautilus, accompany it to latitudes which otherwise would 
prove fatal to their existence; and, trusting its tepid stream, 
float or swim along to the north or the north-east. 
At the extremity of the Bank of Newfoundland, it becomes 
broader, wavers more or less in its course, according to the 
prevailing winds, and at the same time decreases in rapidity, so 
that the boat would most likely still require from ten to eleven 
months for this last station of its journey, ere it once more 
reached the Canary Islands. 
The direction of the Gulf-stream explains to us how the pro- 
ductions of tropical America are so frequently found on the 
shores of the Eastern Atlantic. Humboldt relates that the 
main-mast of the “ Tilbury,” a ship of the line, wrecked during 
the seven years’ war on the coast of San Domingo, was carried 
by the Gulf-stream to the North of Scotland ; and cites the still 
more remarkable fact, that casks of palm oil belonging to the 
eargo of an English vessel, which foundered on a rock near Cape 
Lopez, likewise found their way to Scotland, having thus twice 
traversed the wide Atlantic; first borne from east to west by the 
equatorial current, and then carried from west to east, between 
45° and 55° N. latitude, by means of the Gulf-stream. 
Major Renuell (“ Investigation of Currents ”) relates the pere- 
grinations of a bottle, thrown overboard from the “ Newcastle,” 
on the 20th of January, 1819, in lat. 38° 52’, and long. 66° 20’, 
and ultimately found on the 2nd of June, 1820, on the shore 
of the Island of Arran. 
