286 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP 



just views in regard to the direction and rapidity of cur- 

 rents, which, like rivers of variable breadth, traverse the 

 Atlantic Ocean. The proper " equatorial current," the 

 movement of the waters between the tropics, was first de- 

 scribed by Columbus. " The waters move con los cielos (or 

 like the vault of heaven) from east to west." Even the 

 direction of separate floating masses of sea- weed confirmed 

 tins belief. ( 441 ) A light pan of wrought iron, which 

 he found in the hands of the natives of the island of Qua- 

 daloupe, led Columbus to conjecture that it might be of 

 European origin, belonging to a shipwrecked vessel 

 which the equatorial current might have brought from 

 the Iberian to the American coasts. In his geognostical 

 fancies he regarded the existence of the series of the 

 smaller West India Islands, as well as the peculiar form 

 of the larger islands, (the coincidence of the direc- 

 tion of their coast with the parallels of latitude,) as caused 

 by the long-continued action of the movement of the sea 

 within the tropics from east to west. 



When on his fourth and last voyage the Admiral dis- 

 covered the north and south direction of the coast of 

 America, from Cape Gracias a Dios to the Laguna de 

 Chiriqui, he felt the action of the strong current which sets 

 to the N. and N.N.W., and results from the impinging of the 

 equatorial current against the opposing line of coast. Ang 

 hiera survived Columbus long enough to be aware of the 

 deflection of the waters of the Atlantic in its whole course, 

 to recognise the rotation round the Gulf of Mexico, and 

 the propagation of this movement to the Tierra de los 

 Bacallaos (Newfoundland), and the mouth of the St. Law- 

 rence. I have shewn circumstantiall) in another place, how 



