in a Voyage from Sierra Leone to New York. 427 
rection of the trade-wind lessens from distance) the stream 
pursues its course quite across the Atlantic to the continent of 
South America, where one portion of it proceeds along the 
northern coast of Brazil to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of 
Mexico, and contributes in part to raise the level of those 
seas, and thus to lay the foundation of the Gulf-stream. 
The Pheasant’s voyages from the coast of Africa, succes- 
sively to Ascension, Bahia, Pernambuco, Maranham, Trinidad, 
and Jamaica, were performed principally in the current, the 
origin and progress of which have been thus stated. 
The equatorial current is not usually met with so far to the 
northward, at its commencement on the coast of Africa, as it 
was found by the Pheasant in the month of June: but it is 
probable that at the season when the trade-winds are strongest, 
and approach nearest the equator, the drift-water may be im- 
pelled into a more northern parallel than at other seasons, 
before the opposition to its direct course becomes so strong 
as to occasion it to stream off to the westward. Its more usual 
northern limit, in the meridian of the Island of St. Thomas, 
is considered by Major Rennell to be in the second or third 
degree of south latitude The direction of the stream was 
as nearly west as could be inferred from the observations, and 
its rapidity between the meridians of 7} east, and 7} west, 
averaged forty miles a-day. We appear to have passed out of 
the stream on the 22d of June in latitude 5°+, S., and longi- 
tude 8°+, W., into the drift current from the S8.E., which 
contributes to its supply and to preserve its velocity across 
the Atlantic; it may be seen that the drift-water was pressing 
on the southern border of the stream with a force of 16 and 
18 miles in 24 hours, in a direction oblique to and accelera- 
tive of its course. 
In the passage between the River Gaboon & Ascension, being 
a distance of 1400 geographical miles, the Pheasant was aided 
by the current above 300 miles, in the direction of her course. 
In consequence of the southing of the trade-wind in the 
vicinity of the continent of Africa, the water impelled before 
it, which forms the commencement of the Equatorial stream, 
arrives from a more remote southern parallel, and is therefore 
of a colder temperature than the drift-water which successively 
falls into it from the S.E., impelled more obliquely to the me- 
ridian, and consequently arriving from latitudes less distant 
from the equator. Thus the temperature of the stregm varied 
from 72°°5 to 74°, whilst that of the drift-current was 77°°5 
and 78°. But the more important distinction, both in amount 
and in utility in navigation, is between the waters of the Equa- 
torial and of the Guinea currents. ‘These exhibit the remark- 
s;H2 able 
