ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 63 



In remarking that the fucus and the mud or mire, 

 ), the shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual calms, 

 are always spoken of by the ancients as characteristics of 

 the western ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, one is 

 disposed, more particularly on account of the mention of 

 the calms,to ascribe something to Punic artifice, to the 

 desire of a great trading people to deter others, by the 

 apprehension of dangers and difficulties, from entering into 

 competition with them in western navigation and commerce. 

 But even in the genuine writings of Aristotle (Meteorol. ii. 

 p. 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 Gades and the islands of the Blest or 

 Fortunate Islands, (between Cadix 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 moral 

 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 lengthened 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 



