THE OCEAN. 301 



cold of the ocean, and exercises a beneficent influence on 

 the climate of the northernmost point of Scandinavia. At 

 the point where the stream is deflected to the east by the 

 banks .of Newfoundland, it sends off an arm toward the 

 south, not far from the Azores. ( 375 ) This is the situation 

 of the Sargasso Sea, or that great sea of weed, or bank of 

 fucus, which made so lively an impression on the imagina- 

 tion of Columbus, and which Oviedo calls sea- weed mea- 

 dows, "praderias de yerva." These evergreen masses of 

 Fucus natans (one of the most widely distributed of the 

 social sea plants), driven gently to and fro by mild and 

 warm breeses, are the habitation of a countless number of 

 small marine animals. 



This great current, which, in the Atlantic valley, between 

 Africa, America, and Europe, belongs almost entirely to the 

 northern hemisphere, has its counterpart in the Southern 

 Pacific Ocean, in a current the effect of whose low tempera- 

 ture on the climate of the adjacent coasts was first brought 

 into notice by myself in the autumn of 1802. This current 

 brings the cold water of the high south latitudes to the coast 

 of Chili, and follows its shores and those of Peru north- 

 ward to the bay of Arica, and thence north-westerly to 

 the neighbourhood of Payta, where the most westerly pro- 

 jection of the American coast deflects the stream, and 

 causes : v , suddenly to quit the shore, taking a due west 

 direction. Here the boundary is so sharply marked, that a 

 fillip sailing northwards finds itself passing suddenly from 

 cold to warm water. At certain seasons of the year this 

 cold current brings into the tropics water of 15.6 Cent. 

 (60 Pah.), the temperature of the undisturbed masses of 

 water in the vicinity being from 27.5 to 28.7 Cent. 

 (81.5 to 83.7 Pah.) 



