38 EFFECTS OF WESTWARD PRESSURE 



CHAPTER VII. 



187. Major Rennell, in page 15 of the work which 

 we alluded to in chapter v. mentions that, accord- 

 ing to the French observations in Egypt, the water 

 at the eastern end of the Mediterranean was found 

 to be much lower than the level of the Eed Sea. 

 And this he mentions as showing the great amount 

 of evaporation which takes place in the former. But 

 if the relative levels of these seas were determined by 

 the relative amounts of evaporation in each, we 

 should expect to find that the level of the Red Sea 

 would be the lower of the two. For the temperature 

 of that sea and the ocean adjacent to it must greatly 

 exceed that of the Mediterranean and the adjacent 

 parts of the Atlantic. 



But, according to our theory, the westward 

 pressure resulting from axial rotation would ob- 

 viously tend to cause such a difference of level 

 as has, according to Major RennelFs statement, 

 been ascertained to exist. For in the Red Sea there 

 must be a current tide permanently raised by the 

 westward pressure from the Indian Ocean ; whereas 

 the eastern end of the Mediterranean is depressed by 



