IS THE GULF STREAM A MYTH? 133 



But besides that even this consideration would not 

 suffice to disprove the existence of a current in the 

 mid- Atlantic, an important circumstance remains to be 

 mentioned. The current in the JSTarrows flows with 

 great velocity certainly not less than four or five 

 miles an hour. As the current grows wider it flows 

 more sedately ; and opposite Cape Hatteras its velocity 

 is already reduced to little more than three miles an 

 hour. In the mid-Atlantic the current may be assumed 

 to flow at a rate little exceeding a mile per hour, at 

 the outside. Here, then, we have a circumstance 

 which suffices to remove a large part of the difficulty 

 arising from the narrowness of the Bernini current, 

 and we can at once increase our estimate of the depth 

 of the mid- Atlantic current fivefold. 



But this is not all. It has long been understood 

 that the current which passes out through the Narrows 

 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 w^hich has in the 

 mean time 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" 



