184 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



quantities of solid matter which the current from the Atlantic, 

 holding in solution, carries into the Mediterranean. In his 

 abstract log for March 8th, 1855, Lieutenant William Grenville 

 Temple, of the United States ship Levant, homeward bound, 

 has described the indraught there : " Weather fine ; made 1^ pt. 

 lee-way. At noon, stood in to Almiria Baj^ and anchored off the 

 village of Koguetas. Found a great number of vessels waiting 

 for a chance to get to the westward, and learned from them that 

 at least a thousand sail are weather-bound between 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 current. 

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

 three months past." Now suppose this current, which baffled 

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

 knots the hour. Assuming its depth to be 400 feet only, and its 

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

 portion of solid matter — say one thirtieth — contained in sea 

 water ; and admitting these postulates into calculation 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 during these 90 days. 

 Now, unless there were some escape for all this solid matter, which 

 has been running 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. Tlie Suez Canal. — We have in this fact, viz., the difficulty 

 of egress from the Mediterranean, and the tedious character of 

 the navigation, under canvas, within it, the true secret of the 

 indifference 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 running 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 inhabited, 

 for the most part by an anti-commercial and thriftless people. 

 On the northern shores the climates of each nation are nearly 

 duplicates of the climates of her neighbours to the east and the 

 west ; consequently, these nations all cultivate the same staples. 



