14 THE OCEAN. 



a certain extent, resist the influence of this rotation, 

 and appear to assume a motion in the opposite direc- 

 tion, from east to west. With respect to all the 

 phenomena to be explained, this apparent motion is 

 exactly the same as if it were real, and we shall con- 

 sider it so. Now, examine a globe, or a map of the 

 Atlantic, and you will see that this westerly " set " of 

 the equatorial waters, meeting the coast of South 

 America, is slightly turned through the Caribbean Sea, 

 until it strikes the coast of Mexico, which, like an 

 impregnable rampart, opposes its progress. The stream, 

 impelled by the waves behind, must have an outlet, 

 and the form of the shore drives it round the northern 

 side of the Gulf of Mexico, until it is again bent by 

 the peninsula of Florida. But here the long island 

 of Cuba meets its southerly course, and, like the 

 hunted deer, headed at every turn, the whole of the 

 broad tide that entered the Gulf, now pent up within 

 the compass of a few leagues, rushes with vast impetus 

 through the only outlet that is open, between Florida 

 and the Bahamas. It is as if we propelled with swift- 

 ness against the air a wide funnel, the mouth being 

 outwards, the tube of which was long and tortuous, 

 and which terminated at length nearly at right angles 

 to the mouth : it is easy to imagine that a strong 

 current of air would issue from the tube, exactly as 

 the waters of the Gulf-stream do from their narrow 

 gorge. The waters of the Pacific have the same 

 westerly flow, but its force is broken, without being 

 turned, by the vast assemblage of islands which 

 constitute the eastern Archipelago ; it may, however, 

 be recognized in the Indian Ocean ; and, when bent 



