180 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



384. Witli regard to this outer and under current, we have ob- 

 The drift of the servatious telling of its existence as long ago as 

 Phoenix. 1712. '' In the year 1712," says Dr. Hudson, in a 

 paper commimicated to the Philosophical Society in 1724, " Mon- 

 sieiu' du L'Aigle, that fortimate and generous commander of the 

 privateer called the Phcenix, of Marseilles, giving chase near Ceuta 

 Point to a Dutch ship bomid to Holland, came up with her in the 

 middle of the Gut between Tariffa and Tangier, and there gave her 

 one broadside, which directly sunli her, all her men being saved by 

 Monsiem' du L'Aigle ; and a few days after, the Dutch ship, with 

 her cargo of brandy and oil, arose on the shore near Tangier, which 

 is at least fom- leagues to the westward of the place where she sunk, 

 and directly against the strength of the cmTent, v^diich has per- 

 suaded many men that there is a recurrency in the deep water in 

 the middle of the Grut that sets outward to the grand ocean, which 

 this accident very much demonstrates ; and, possibly, a great part 

 of the water which rmis into the Straits retm^ns that way, and along 

 the two coasts before mentioned; otherwise this ship must, of 

 com^se, have been driven towards Ceuta, and so upwards. The water 

 in the Gut must be very deep ; several of the commanders of ouj' 

 ships of war having attempted to sound it with the longest lines 

 they could contrive, but could never find any bottom." 



385. In 1828, Dr. Wollaston, in a paper before the Philosophi- 

 saitness of the cal Socicty, statcd that he fomid the specific gi^avity 

 Mediterranean. q£ c^ spccimcn of sca wator, fi'om a de])th of six 

 hmidred and seventy fathoms, fifty miles within the Straits to have 

 a " density exceeding that of distilled water by more than four 

 times the usual excess, and accordingly leaves, upon evaporation, 

 more than fom' times the usual quantity of saline residuum. Hence 

 it is clear that an mider cuiTent outward of such denser water, if of 



tity of water is carried out as comes flowing in. To confirm which, besides what 

 I have said above about the difierence of tides in the offing and at the sliore in 

 the Downs, which necessarily supposes an under current, I shall present you with 

 an instance of the like nature in the Baltic Sound, as I received it from an able 

 seamen, who was at the making of the trial. He told me that, being there in one 

 of the kings frigates, they w^ent with their pinnace into the mid stream, and were 

 carried violently by the current ; that, soon after this, they sunk a bucket with a 

 heavy cannon ball to a certain depth of water, which gave a check to the boat's 

 motion ; and, sinking it still lower and lower, the boat was driven ahead to the 

 windward against the upper current : the current aloft, as he added, not being 

 over four or five fathoms deei^, and that the lower the bucket was let fall, they 

 foimd the under current the stronger." 



