TIDES AND OCEANIC HIGHWAYS. 



363 



western flow of the Pacific, mentioned as sweeping round the Cape of Good Hope, 

 mingles with it as a perpetual feeder, while, from its northern region, a branch is sent off 

 towards the coasts of Great Britain and Norway. This arm of the gulf stream leaves it 

 in latitude 45 and 50, near the bank of Bonnet-Flamand. It runs to the north-east, 

 and becomes very strong when the winds have blown a long time from the west. By this 

 current, plants, seeds, and the fruit of trees, which belong to the torrid zone of America, 

 are annually borne through the North Atlantic, and deposited on the western coasts of 

 Ireland, Scotland, and Norway. On the shores of the Hebrides, the seeds are collected 



Orenburg Castle, and Entrance to the Sound. 



of several plants belonging to Jamaica, Cuba, and the neighbouring continent ; and the 

 remains of cargoes of vessels wrecked in the West Indian seas have been drifted to the 

 same quarter. The fragments of the English vessel, the Tilbury, burnt near Jamaica, 

 reached the coast of Scotland ; and tortoises inhabiting the waters of the Antilles have 

 undergone a similar transportation. A most remarkable case is related by Wallace, that 

 twice, in 1682 and 1684, American savages of the race of the Esquimaux, driven out to 

 sea in their leathern canoes during a storm, and left to the guidance of the currents, 

 reached the Orkneys an example of involuntary migration, which shows how, when the 

 art of navigation was yet in its infancy, the motion of the waters of the ocean may have 

 contributed to disseminate the different races of men over the face of the globe. 



It is natural to inquire concerning the origin of this extraordinary and vast whirl of 

 the waters of the ocean. The westerly movement in equatorial regions is in a direction 

 contrary to that of the earth's rotation, and appears to be connected with this last phe 

 nomenon, along with the trade winds, which follow the same course. Owing to the 

 action of the current and the wind, the waters of the Atlantic are crowded into the great 

 American bay which terminates with the Gulf of Mexico, entering it on the south, 

 where, upon being repulsed by the shores of the continent, they accumulate, and flow off 

 to the north-east, forming the gulf stream. It has been calculated that the waters of 

 the gulf, 4000 miles distant from the Cape de Verde islands on the coast of Africa, are 

 elevated 32q feet above the level of the ocean in the latter locality. This arises from the 

 pressure exerted by the particles of water upon each other under the influence of the 

 wind and current, and the resistance offered to their farther westward progress by the 

 shores of Central America. It has frequently been observed, that a prolonged wind 



