VOL. XIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 31 



till it runs as far as Malaga, which is about 20 leagues within the Straits. By the 

 benefit of this current, though the wind be contrary, if it does not overblow, 

 ships easily turn into the Gut, as they term the narrow passage, which is about 

 20 miles in length. At the end of which are 2 towns, Gibraltar on the coast 

 of Spain, which gives denomination to the strait, and Ceuta on the Barbary 

 coast; at which places Hercules is supposed to have set up his pillars. What 

 becomes of this great quantity of water poured in this way, and of that which 

 runs from the Euxine into the Bosphorus and Propontis, and carried at last 

 through the Hellespont into the iEgean or Archipelago, is a curious speculation, 

 and has exercised the ingenuity of philosophers and navigators. For there is 

 no sensible rising of the water all along the Barbary coast, even down to Alex- 

 andria, the land beyond Tripoli, and that of Egypt lying very low, and easily 

 to be overflowed. They observe, indeed, that the water rises 3 feet or 3 feet 

 and 4- in the gulf of Venice, and as much, or very near as much, all along 

 the river of Genoa, as far as the river Arno; but this rather adds to the wonder. 



I here omit to speak at large of the several hypotheses which have been in- 

 vented to solve this difficulty; such as subterraneous vents, cavities, and 

 indraughts, exhalations by the sun beams, the running out of the water on the 

 African side, as if there were a kind of circular motion of the water, and that 

 it only flowed in upon the Christian shore, which latter I consider as a mere 

 fancy, and contrary to all observation. 



My conjecture is, that there is an under-current, by which as great a quan- 

 tity of water is carried out as comes flowing in. To confirm which, besides 

 what I have said above about the difference of tides in the offing, and at the 

 shore in the Downs, which necessarily supposes an under-current, I shall pre- 

 sent you with an instance of the like nature in the Baltic sound, as I received 

 it from an able seaman, who was at the making of the trial. He told me, that 

 being there in one of the king's frigates, they went with their pinnace into the 

 C4 mid stream, and were carried violently by the current; that soon after they sunk 

 a bucket with a large cannon ball, to a certain depth of water, which gave 

 check to the boat's motion, and sinking it still lower and lower, the boat was 

 driven ahead to windward against the upper current : the current aloft, as he 

 added, not being 4 or 5 fathom deep, and that the lower the bucket was let fall, 

 they found the under current the stronger. 



The Longitudes, Latitudes, Right Ascensions, and Declinations of the chief Fixed 

 Stars, according to the best Observers ; in a Letter from Mr. Edward Ber- 

 nard to the Rev. Dr. Rob. Huntington, Provost of Trinity College, near Dub- 

 lin, in Ireland. N° 158, p. 367. 

 These tables of the places of some of the principal fixed stars, collected out 



