278 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



to behold at sea) are often fallen in with there. 

 Perhaps more wrecks are made within, and at 

 the edges of the Gulf Stream, than in any other 

 part of the ocean ; squalls are so violent there, 

 the lightning so terrific, and the wind and 

 current so often opposed, as to raise an ugly, 

 chopping, " head-beat" sea, that, if long con- 

 tinued, may beat to pieces, or start dangerous 

 leaks in the very best of ships. 



Wrecks, too, once made there, and ships 

 abandoned without foundering, will stay for a 

 long time in the course of the stream, being 

 carried along and kept within it by the force of 

 the current. Some captains think that the 

 same wreck may sometimes go the whole round 

 of the stream, being kept along in it to where it 

 is lost, or turns southward by the Western 

 Islands, then taken by the current from the 

 north, and borne to the south and west by the 

 north-east trades, until it falls into the identical 

 Gulf Stream again, or a current setting into it 

 off the Windward Islands of the West Indies. 



Just so in the political, religious, and philo- 

 sophical world, you will see the wrecks of certain 



