68 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



with them in western navigation and commerce. But even in the 

 genuine writings of Aristotle (Meteorol. ii. pp. 1, 14), he maintains 

 this same opinion of the absence of wind in those regions, and seeks 

 the explanation of what he erroneously supposes to be a fact of 

 observation, but which is more properly a fabulous mariner's tale, 

 in an hypothesis concerning the depth of the sea. In reality, the 

 stormy sea between Grades and the islands of the Blest or Fortunate 

 Islands, (between Cadiz and the Canaries,) is very unlike the sea 

 farther to the south between the tropics, where the gentle trade winds 

 blow, and which is called very characteristically by the Spaniards, el 

 Golfo de las Damas, the Ladies' Gulf. (Acosta, Historia natural y 

 mojal de las Indias, lib. iii. cap. 4.) 



From very careful researches by myself, and from the comparison 

 of the logs or journals of many English and French vessels, I infer 

 that the old and indefinite expression, Mar de Sargasso, includes two 

 banks of fucus, of which the greater and easternmost one, of a length- 

 ened shape, is situated between the parallels of 19 and 34 N. lat., 

 in a meridian of 7 degrees to the west of the Island of Corvo, one 

 of the Azores; while the lesser and westernmost bank, of a roundish 

 form, is situated between the Bermudas and the Bahamas, (lat. 

 25-31, long. 66-74.) The longer axis of the small bank which 

 is crossed by ships going from Bajo de Plata (Caye d' Argent, Silver 

 Cay) en the north of St. Domingo, to the Bermudas, appears to have 

 a N. 60 E. direction. A transverse band of Fucus natans, running 

 in an east and west direction between the parallels of 25 and 30, 

 connects the greater and lesser banks. I have had the gratification 

 of seeing these inferences approved by my honored friend Major 

 Kennell, and adopted by him in his great work on Currents, where 

 he has further supported and confirmed them by many new and ad- 

 ditional observations. (Compare Humboldt, Relation Historique, 

 t. i. p. 202, and Examen Critique, t. iii. pp. 68-99, with Rennell's 

 Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic Ocean, 1832, p. 184.) 

 The two groups of sea-weed, included together with the transverse 

 connecting band under the old general name of the Sargasso Sea, 

 occupy altogether a space exceeding six or seven times the area of 

 Germany." 



Thus it is the vegetation of the ocean which offers the most re- 





