120 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



of Bernini corresponds to the portion of the great 

 equatorial current which passes into the Gulf of Mexico 

 between the West Indian Islands. We cannot doubt 

 that the barrier formed by those islands serves to 

 divert a large portion of the equatorial current. The 

 portion thus diverted finds its way, we may assume, 

 along the outside of the West Indian Archipelago, 

 and thus joins the other portion which has in the 

 meantime made the circuit of the Gulf as it issues 

 from the Bernini Straits. All the maps in which the 

 Atlantic currents are depicted present precisely such 

 an outside current as we have here spoken of, and 

 most of them assign to it a width exceeding that of 

 the Bernini current. Indeed, were it not for the doubts 

 which the recent discussions have thrown upon all the 

 currents charted by seamen, we should have been con- 

 tent to point to this outside current as shown in the 

 maps. As it is, we have thought it necessary to show 

 that such a current must necessarily have an existence, 

 since we cannot lose sight of the influence of the West 

 Indian Isles in partially damming up the passage along 

 which the equatorial current would otherwise find its 

 way into the Gulf of Mexico. Whatever portion of 

 the great current is thus diverted must find a passage 

 elsewhere, and no passage exists for it save along the 

 outside of the West Indian Isles. 



The possibility that the wide current which has 

 been assumed to traverse the mid- Atlantic may be as- 

 sociated with the waters which flow from the Gulf of 

 Mexico, either through the Narrows or round the out- 



