THE GULF STREAM. 197 
western shores of Norway and the northern coast of Great Britain 
driftwood of unknown timber and seeds of plants foreign to the tem- 
perate zone were occasionally stranded, coming from shores where 
probably no European had as yet set foot. 
The Portuguese navigators, sailing west, came beyond the Canaries 
to an ocean covered with seaweed (the gulf-weed of the Sargasso Sea), 
through which none dared to push their way, and the problem of the 
‘Sea of Darkness” remained unsolved until the time of Columbus. He 
possibly was familiar with the traditions of the voyages of the Norse- 
men and undoubtedly had access to more or less accurate information 
regarding the Atlantic, accumulated previous to his time in the ar- 
chives of Portugal and Spain or circulated among the sea folk of that 
day, and this information included legends of lands to the west. Co- 
lumbus started under the full persuasion that he could reach the lands 
from which the remarkable products brought by the currents had 
originated. When he came into the region of the northeast trades 
and found himself swiftly carried westward, not only by the winds, but 
also by a current moving in the direction of the trades, his return 
seemed very hazardous, unless he could strike upon that opposite cur- 
rent which had borne the trees and seeds to the northern coasts of 
Europe. Obliged by the trades to take a northerly course on his way 
home from Hispaniola in 1495, he came upon the region of variable and 
westerly winds, with a current setting in the same direction. Colum- 
bus was thus the first to introduce the circular sailing course which, 
up to the present day, vessels sailing from the West Indies to Europe 
are compelled to take. They come before the wind with the trades, 
make the Windward Islands, and, sailing northward, find their way 
through the Windward or the Mona Passage, until they reach the belt 
of variable and westerly winds, when they steer toward the European 
shores again. 
After reaching the Mexican coast, Columbus, by one of his broad 
generalizations, practically discovered the Straits of Florida, arguing 
that it must have an outlet into the Atlantic and that he would thus 
ascape the tedious voyage in the teeth of the northeast trades, which 
would be his lot if he attempted to find his way home by the usual 
route of the Windward or the Mona Passage. In 1519, an expedition 
inspired by Alaminos was dispatched by Garay, governor of Jamaica, 
to follow the easterly current running along the northern shores of 
Cuba. The expedition, however, did not succeed in passing to the 
sastward of Cape Florida. 
An accurate knowledge of the currents and winds enabled the free- 
booters of the sixteenth century to carry on their depredations with 
impunity, and their successors, the wreckers of the Florida reefs and 
Bahamas, made use of their intimate knowledge of the coasts and of 
the winds and currents to obtain commercial advantages, not always 
by the most honest methods. With the mapping of the reefs by the 
