THE GULF STREAM. 47 



of water, and the wind lias therefore more power upon them 

 than it has upon the water itself; they tail to the wind. And if the 

 supreme power over the currents of the sea reside in the winds, 

 as Sir John Herschel would have it, then of all places in the 

 trade-^ind region, we should have here the strongest cm-rents. 

 Had there been currents here, these weeds would have been 

 borne away long ago; but so far from it, we simply know 

 that they have been in the Sargasso Sea (§ 88) of the Atlantic 

 since the first voyage of Colmnbus. But to take up the broken 

 thread : — 



135. The water that is drifting north, on the outside of the GrJf 

 fiSd^o^^^-aSosT" ^^^'®^^^' turns, with the Gulf Stream, to the east 

 currents.' '°^ also. It camiot rcach the high latitudes (§ 80), for 

 it cannot cross the Gulf Stream. Two streams of w^ater cannot 

 cross each other, unless one dip down and underrun the other; 

 and if this drift water do dip down, as it may, it cannot carry 

 with it its floating matter, which, like its Vs^eed^, is too Hght to 

 sink. They, therefore, are cut off fi'om a passage into higher 

 latitudes. 



136. According to this view, there ought to be a sargasso sea 

 Theory as to the for- somewhcre iu the sort of middle ground between 

 mation of sargassos. j^\^q grand equatorial flow and reflow which is per- 

 foiTQcd by the waters of all the great oceans. The place where the 

 drift matter of each sea would naturally collect would be in this 

 sort of pool, into which every current, as it goes from the equator, 

 and again as it returns, woidd slough off its drift matter. The 

 forces of diurnal rotation would requii'e this collection of drift to be, 

 in the northern hemisphere, on the right-hand side of the cmTent, 

 and, in the southern, to be on the left. (See Chap. XVIII. and 

 Plate IX.) 



137. Thus, with the GuK Stream of the Atlantic, and the '^ Black 

 Sargassos of south- Stream " of the Pacific, their sargassos are on the 

 oMhrJouthera/to right, as they are also on the right of the returning 

 JJk?anV',^uatS ^^^^ ^ooler ciuTeuts on the eastern side of each one of 

 flow and reflow. tliosc uorthem occaus. So, also, with the Mozam- 

 bique current, which runs south along the east coast of Africa from 

 the Indian Ocean, and with the cooler current setting to the north 

 on the Austrahan side of the same sea. Between these there is a 

 sargasso on the left ; for it is in the southern hemisphere. 



138. Again, there is in the South Pacific a flow of equatorial 

 Their position con- watcTS to the Antarctic on the east of Austraha, and 



lurms to the theory. ' 



