CURRENTS OF THE SEA. 205 



incessant, they are not entirely without salt, may be taken as 

 evidence in proof of a system of currents or of circulation in the 

 .sea, by which its waters are shaken up and kept mixed together 

 as though they were in a phial. 



407. Currents of the Atlantic. — The principal currents of the 

 Atlantic have been described in the chapter on the Gulf Stream. 

 Besides this, its eddies and its offsets are the equatorial current 

 (Plate VI.), and the St. Eoque or Brazil Current. Their fountain- 

 head is the same : it is in the warm waters about the equator, 

 between Africa and America. The former, receiving the Amazon 

 and the Orinoco as tributaries by the way, flows into the 

 Caribbean Sea, and becomes, with the waters (§ 103) in which 

 the vapours of the trade-winds leave their salts, the feeder of the 

 Gulf Stream. The Brazil current, coming from the same fountain, 

 is supposed to be divided by Cape St. Roque, one branch going 

 to the south under this name (Plate IX.), the other to the west- 

 ward. This last has been a great bugbear to navigators, princi- 

 pally on accoimt of the difficulties which a few dull vessels 

 falling to leeward of St. Roque have found in beating up against 

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

 in the last century, which fell to leeward of the Cajoe on a 

 voyage to the other hemisphere ; and navigators, accordingly, 

 were advised to shun it as a danger. 



408. Tlie St. Boque current. — This current has been an object of 

 special investigation during my researches connected with the 

 AVind and Current Charts, and the result has satisfied me that as 

 a rule it is neither a dangerous nor a constant current, notwith- 

 standing older writers. Horsburgh, in his East India Directory, 

 cautions navigators against it ; and Keith Johnston, in his great 

 Physical Atlas, published in 1848, thus speaks of it: "This 

 current greatly impedes the progress of those vessels which cross 

 the equator west of 23° west longitude, impelling them beyond 

 Cape St, Roque, when they are drawn towards the northern 

 coast of Brazil, and cannot regain their course till after weeks or 

 months of delay and exertion." So far from this being the case, 

 my researches abundantly prove that 'vessels which cross the 

 equator five himdred 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 report the 



