CURRENTS OF THE SEA. 177 



from tliem that at least a tliousand sail are TS'eather-Lomid l^etween 

 this and Gibraltar. Some of them have been so for six weeks, and 

 have even got as far as Malaga, only to be swept back by the cm^- 

 rent. Indeed, no vessel had been able to get out into the Atlantic 

 for three months past." Now suppose this cm-rent, which baffled 

 and beat back this fleet for so many days, ran no faster than two 

 knots the hom\ Assuming its depth to be 400 feet only, and its 

 width seven miles, and that it carried in with it the average propor- 

 tion of sohd matter — say one thirtieth — contained in sea water ; 

 and admitting these postulates into calcidation as the 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 dming these 90 days. Now, unless there 

 were some escape for all this solid matter, which has been rumiing 

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

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

 na^agation, under canvas, within it, the true secret of the indif- 

 ference which, in commercial circles in England and the Atlantic 

 states of Europe, is manifested towards the projected Suez Canal. 

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

 States, to Greece, and Austria, it would be the greatest commercial 

 boon of the age. The Mediterranean is a great gulf rmming from 

 west to east, penetrating the old world almost to its very centre, and 

 separating its most civilized from its most savage communities. Its 

 southern shores are mhabited, for the most part, by an anti-com- 

 mercial and thriftless people. On the northern shores the chmates 

 of each nation are nearly duplicates of the climates of her neigh- 

 bom's to the east and the west; consequently, these nations all 

 cultivate the same staples, and have wants that 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 chmates. To reach these, the Medi- 

 terranean people have had to encounter the tedious navigation and 

 the sometimes difficult egress — -just described — from then* sea. 

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

 find themselves in a position so favourable for reaching the markets 

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

 Lizard. Such is the obstruction which the winds and the cmTcnt 



