CURRENTS OF THE SEA. 197 



Stream. Besides this, its eddies and its offsets are the equatorial cur- 

 (jurrents of Lhe r^nt (Plate YL), and the St. licque or Brazil Ciir- 

 Atiantic. j^gjj^^ Their fountain-head is the same : it is in the 



warm waters about the equator, between Africa and America. The 

 former, recei^dng the Amazon and the Orinoco as tributaries by the 

 way, flows into the Caribbean Sea, and becomes, ^\dth the v/aters 

 (§ 103) in which the vapours of the trade-winds leave then- salts, 

 the feeder of the Gulf Stream. The Brazil cmTcnt, coming from 

 the same fountain, is supposed to be diwided by Cape St. Eo(iue, 

 one branch going to the south under this name (Plate IX.), the 

 other to the westward. This last has been a great bugbear to 

 navigators, principally on account of the difficulties which a few 

 dull vessels faUing to leeward of St. Pioque have found in beating 

 up against it. It was said to have caused the loss of some English 

 transports in the last centmy, which fell to leeward of the Cape on 

 a voyage to the other hemisphere ; and navigators, accordingly, 

 were advised to shun it as a danger. 



408. This cmTent has been an object of special investigation 

 rii3 St. Pwoque current, duriug my rescarches connected with the Wind and 

 ■CuiTent Charts, and the result has satisfied me that as a rule it is 

 neither a dangerous nor a constant current, notwithstanding older 

 wi'iters. Horsbm'gh, in his East India Director}^, cautions navigators 

 against it ; and Keith Johnston, in his great Physical Atlas, pub- 

 lished in 1848, thus speaks of it : " This cmTent greatly impedes the 

 progress of those vessels which cross the equator west of 23" west 

 longitude, impelling them beyond Cape St. Koque, when they are 

 xlrawn towards the northern coast of Brazil, and cannot regain then* 

 course till after weeks or months of delay and exertion." So far 

 fi'om this being the case, my researches abundantly prove that 

 vessels which cross the equator five hundred miles to the west of 

 longitude 23° have no difficulty on account of this current in 

 ■clearing that cape. I receive almost daily the abstract logs of 

 vessels that cross the equator west of long. 30° and in three days 

 from that crossing they are generally clear of that cape. A few of 

 them repoi-t the cmTent in their favour ; most of them experience 

 no cmTent at all ; but, now and then, some do find a current set- 

 ting to the northward and westward, and operating against them 

 at the rate of 20 and occasionally of 50 miles a day. The inter- 

 tropical regions of the Atlantic, like those of the other oceans 

 (§ 401), abound with conflicting cmTents, which no researches yet 

 have enabled the mariner to imravel so that he may at aU times know 



