THE GULF STREAM. 



29 



its stream. Bottles cast into the sea midway between the Old 

 and the New Worlds, near the coasts of Europe, Africa, and 

 America, at the extreme north or farthest south, have been found 

 either in the West Indies, or within the well-known range of Gulf 

 Stream waters. 



Of two cast out together in south latitude on the coast of Africa, 

 one was found on the island of Trinidad ; the other on Guernsey, 

 in the English Channel. 



In the absence of positive information on the subject, the cir- 

 cumstantial evidence that the latter performed the tour of the 

 Gulf is all but conclusive. 



Another bottle, thrown over off Cape Horn by an American 

 master in 1837, has been recently picked up on the coast of Ire- 

 land. An inspection of the chart, and of the drift of the other 

 bottles, seems to force the conclusion that this bottle too went 

 even from that remote region to the so-called highe?' level of the 

 Gulf Stream reservoir. 



13. Midway the Atlantic, in the triangular space between the 

 Azores, Canaries, and the Cape de Verd Islands, is the Sargasso Sea. 

 (Plate VI.) Covering an area equal in extent to the Mississippi 

 Valley, it is so thickly matted over with Gulf weed (fucus natans), 

 that the speed of vessels passing through it is often much retard- 

 ed. When the companions of Columbus saw it, they thought it 

 marked the limits of navigation, and became alarmed. To the 

 eye, at a little distance, it seems substantial enough to walk upon. 

 Patches of the weed are always to be seen floating along the Gulf 

 Stream. Now, if bits of cork or chaff, or any floating substance, 

 be put into a basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, 

 all the light substances will be found crowding together near the 

 centre of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a 

 basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso 

 Sea is the centre of the whirl. Columbus first found this weedy 

 sea in his voyage of discovery ; there it has remained to this day ; 

 and certain observations as to its hmits, extending back for fifty 

 years, assure us that its position has not been altered since that 

 time. This indication of a circular motion by the Gulf Stream is 

 corroborated by the bottle chart and other sources of information. 

 If, therefore, this be so, why give the endless current a higher 

 level in one part of its course than another ? 



