<= ow Pea 
as crossed three hundred Miles from its Mouth. 433 
that the deflection may have been scarcely sensible in the 
early part of the course, but much more rapid latterly than 
would be due to the whole effect divided by the distance; and 
that a further deflection of the 16 degrees, which measured 
the inclination of the streams where the Pheasant crossed the 
division-line, might not require much more distance for its 
accomplishment; when the course of the streams being pa- 
rallel, the obstacle to the diffusion of the river-water on its 
eastern side would be removed, and the marked line of the 
separation of the streams would gradually cease to exist. In 
the early part of the river’s marine course, as it may be 
termed, and where the force of the current of the ocean is 
comparatively weak, the greater obliquity of its direction may 
compensate for its want of force, in enabling it to oppose the 
diffusion of the river-water. On the western side the fresh 
water is gradually and insensibly lost in that of the sea; at 
noon on the 12th, the specific gravity of the surface-water was 
1-0253, in latitude 7° 05', and longitude 53°. 
The effect which the stream of the Amazons produces on 
the current of the ocean in thus crossing its course, is to ac- 
cumulate the water brought by the Equatorial current, until 
it streams off with a rapidity which gradually deflects, and 
ultimately overpowers the obstacle, which opposes its more 
regular flow; it is to the accumulation from this cause, that 
the partial velocity of ninety-nine miles in twenty-four hours,’ 
much exceeding the average rate of the branch of the Equa- 
torial current between Cape St. Roque and the West Indies, 
is to be attributed. The southern border of the current is 
also removed by it to a distance from the land, leaving a space 
of the ocean, bounded by the river-water on the east, the land 
on the south, and the Equatorial current on the north, which 
is occupied by irregular streams of various and uncertain 
strength and direction, as shown by the Pheasant’s experience 
between the 11th and the 14th of September. It is desirable 
that vessels bound from the Brazils to the West Indies should, 
therefore, keep well off the land of Guiana, in order to pre- 
serve the strength of the Equatorial current in their favour; 
whilst others, endeavouring to make a passage along the coast 
to the eastward, should be especially cautious to keep in the 
space within the current. The Pheasant re-entered the cur- 
rent about the eighth degree of latitude, and in the fifty-seventh 
of longitude, and was subsequently indebted to its influence, 
between two miles and two miles and a half an hour, until her 
arrival in the Gulf of Paria®. The 
* In the passage from Maranham to the West Indies, and in crossing 
the mouth of one of the largest rivers of the globe, the hygrometrical state 
Vol, 67. No. 338. June 1826. 3] of 
