OCEAN CURRENTS 159 



main directions. The principal (the so-called Gulf Stream) 

 moves north-east. Another branch takes a south-easterly 

 direction past the Azores, and reaches the African coast as the 

 Canaries Current. Between the extreme north-easterly and 

 south-easterly branches we find the Florida Current, supplying 

 the coasts of the British Isles, the North Sea, the Bay of 

 Biscay, and the Mediterranean through the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, with warm tropical water. The velocity of the 

 current is now relatively feeble. Along a line between the 

 United States coast and the English Channel the current is 

 rarely 48 miles per day, and the farther east one comes the 

 weaker is the current ; on the average it is not more than 12 to 

 15 miles a day. The direction is not constant, and depends 

 largely on the wind. 



The warm water of the Florida Current which flows 

 between the Newfoundland Banks and the Bermudas runs 

 then in an easterly direction to the Azores, where it passes 

 over into the Canaries Current, and this, again, into the North 

 Equatorial Stream by Cape Verde. Consequently, there is in 

 this region of the North Atlantic an anticyclonal drift around 

 a centre which is located between the Canaries and the 

 Bermudas, In the central area is the so-called Sargasso Sea, 

 in which on all sides the currents bend to the right. 



Numerous wrecks and flotsam drift across in the winter 

 storms from the American coast to the neighbourhood of the 

 Azores. 



The marine plants (Fucoids) known as Sargassum bacci- 

 ferum and allied species are shore forms which flourish in the 

 warm water of the American coasts up to Cape Cod, but more 

 especially on the rocky West Indian islands. They are broken 

 off by the waves of tropical storms and float in the Florida 

 Current, and are thus distributed over the whole of the North 

 Atlantic. These plants were found by Columbus. Humboldt 

 investigated the distribution of this " Gulf- weed," and 

 described two banks, one between Flores and Corvo from 

 40 W. Long, to 20 N. Lat., and a second smaller bank at 



