2G rnTSicAL geography of the sea, and its meteor ology. 



Atlantic, against the trade-winds ; for a part of the \N^ay it runs 

 right in the " wind's eye." The Japan cuiTent, " the Gulf 

 Stream of the Pacific," does the same. The Mozambique current 

 runs to the south, against the S.E. trade-winds, and it changes 

 not with the monsoons. The ice-bearing currents of the north 

 oppose the winds in their course. Humboldt's current has its 

 genesis in the ex- tropical regions of the south, where the " bravo 

 west winds " blow with almost if not with quite the regularity 

 of the trades, but with double their force. And this current, 

 instead of setting to the S.E. before these winds, flows north in 

 spite of them. These are the main and constant currents of the 

 sea — the great arteries and jugulars through which its circula- 

 tion is conducted. In every instance, and regardless of w-inds, 

 those currents that are warm flow towards the poles, those that 

 are cold set towards the equator. And this they do, not by the 

 force of the winds, but in spite of them, and by the force of those 

 ver}'- agencies that make the winds to blow. They flo^v thus by 

 virtue of those efforts which the sea is continually making to 

 restore that equilibrium to its Avaters w^hich heat and cold, the 

 forces of evaporation, and the secretion of its inhabitants are 

 everlastingly destroying. 



81. Tlie supremacy of the winds disputed. — If the winds make 

 the upper, w^hat makes the under and counter currents? This 

 question is of itself enough to impeach that supremacj- of tlie 

 winds upon the currents, which the renowned philosopher, with 

 whom I am so unfortunate as to differ, travelled so far out of his 

 way to vindicate.* The "bottles" also dispute, in their silent 

 way, the " supremacy of the wands " over the currents of the 

 sea. The bottles that are thrown overboard to U^y currents are 

 partly out of the w^ater. The wdnd lias influence upon them, 

 yet of all those — and the}^ are many — that have been thrown 

 overboard in the trade-wind region of the North Atlantic, or in 

 the Caribbean Sea, where the trade-winds blow, none have been 

 found to drift with the wind : they all drift with the current, and 

 nearly at right angles to the wind. 



* "We have, perhaps, been more diffuse on the subject of oceanic currents 

 than the nature of this article may seem to justify ; but some such detail 

 seemed necessary to vindicate to the winds their supremacy in the production 

 of currents, without calhng in the feeble and ineffective aid of heated water, 

 or the still more insignificant influence of insect secretion, which has been 

 pressed into the service as a cause of buoyancy in the regions occupied by coral 

 formations."— Ai-t. 65, Phys. Geography, Encyc. Brit. 



