80 . THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



to be swept back by the current. Indeed, no vessel bad been able 

 to get out into the Atlantic for three months past." Now, sup- 

 pose this current, which baffled and beat back this fleet for so 

 many days, ran no faster than two knots the hour. Assuming its 

 dej^th to be 400 feet only, and its width seven miles, and that it 

 carried in with it the average proportion of solid matter — say one 

 thirtieth — contained in sea water ; and admitting these postulates 

 into calculation as tjie basis of the computation, it appears that 

 salts enough to make no less than 88 cubic miles of solid matter, 

 of the density of water, were carried into the Mediterranean dur- 

 ing these 90 days. Now, unless there were some escape for all 

 this solid matter, which has been running into that sea, not for 90 

 days merely, but for ages, it is very clear that the Mediterranean 

 would, ere this, have been a vat of very strong brine, or a bed of 

 cubic crystals. 



379. We have in this fact, viz., the difficulty of egress from the 

 The Suez Canal. Mediterranean, and the tedious character of the nav- 

 igation, under canvas, within it, the true secret of the indifference 

 which, in commercial circles in England and the Atlantic states 

 of Europe, is manifested toward the projected Suez Canal. But 

 to France and Spain on the Mediterranean, to the Italian States, 

 Greece, and Austria, it would be the greatest commercial boon of 

 the age. The Mediterranean is a great gulf running from west to 

 east, penetrating the Old World almost to its very centre, and sep- 

 arating its most civilized from its most savage parts. Its south- 

 ern shores are inhabited, for the most part, by an anti-commercial 

 and thriftless people. On the northern shores the climates of 

 each nation are nearly duplicates of the climates of her neighbors 

 to the east and the west ; consequently, these nations all cultivate 

 the same staples, and their wants are similar: for a commerce 

 among themselves, therefore, they lack the main elements, viz., 

 difference of production, and the diversity of wants which are the 

 consequence of variety of climates. To reach these, the Mediter- 

 ranean people have had to encounter the tedious navigation and 

 the sometimes difficult egress — just described — from their sea. 

 Clearing the Straits of Gibraltar, their vessels do not even then 

 find themselves in a position so favorable for reaching the mark- 

 ets of the world as they would be were they in Liverpool or off 

 the Lizard. Such is the obstruction which the winds and the cur- 

 rent from the Atlantic offer to the navigation there, thnt vessels 



