OCEANIC CIRCULATION. 215 



but for the fate of others, I should feel no anxiety on 

 this point, though I have myself a favourite theory to 

 uphold respecting one branch of the subject. As it is, 

 I share something of the feeling of the Eed Cross 

 Knight when he was approaching ' Foul Error's den/ 

 and his monitress said to him, ' The perils of this place 

 I better wot than thou ; therefore I rede, Beware.' I 

 am not without hope, however, that I may be able to 

 keep my snarling muscles quiescent. 



I shall direct attention chiefly to the Atlantic cur- 

 rents, as being those whose real direction and extent 

 are best known, and those, moreover, whose character- 

 istics are most important to European nations. 



Let us begin with the surface currents, and though 

 the system of surface circulation can scarcely be said to 

 have a real beginning, let us start with the great equa- 

 torial currents which flow westwards from the Gulf of 

 Guinea, 1 or more correctly from the Bight of Biafra. 

 We speak of the westwardly equatorial currents-, because 

 not unfrequently there is an equatorial eastward current 

 running between two much more important tropical 

 westward currents. Yet ordinarily there is one great 

 westward current running in an unbroken stream from 

 equatorial Africa to the shores of Brazil, and even when 

 this great current is divided into two by an eastward 

 current this last is only to be regarded as a sort of 

 ' backwater.' The water moving westwards is relatively 

 cold, more especially on the African side of the Atlantic. 



1 Along the shores of the Gulf of Guinea there flows an easterly 

 current, several degrees warmer than the equatorial current. 



