56 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1724. 



the ovaria in women. He has read a learned dissertation relating to this dis- 

 covery, before the Academy of Sciences in Bologna, in which he undertakes 

 to prove, that those renes succenturiati, are to be reckoned among the principal 

 organs of generation.* 



Of the Currents at the Straits Mouth. By Capt. - - - - . Communicated btf 

 Dr. Hudson. N" 385, p. IQl. 



Cape Spartel, and Cape Trafalgar, from the western ocean, are known to 

 make the Straits mouth; from whence a current, in the middle of the 

 channel, which is about five leagues broad, between the Barbary and Spanish 

 land, runs at least 1 miles each hour, as far as Ceuta Point : and there the two 

 coasts opening about 18 leagues distant from each other, the current does not 

 run above 1 mile an hour, and so continues as far as Cape de Gat, which is 

 70 leagues up the Mediterranean. Our mariners observe a current to set to 

 the western sea, or the great ocean, from Ceuta, along the Barbary shore ; 

 and from Gibraltar, along the Spanish shore; but that on the Barbary shore is 

 generally their common route, not only as being the freest from rocks and less 

 dangerous, but because the tide is much stronger than on the other side, which 

 the sooner helps the ships out of the Straits, which are the narrowest be- 

 tween the points of Gibraltar and Ceuta; at which last place a neck of land 

 extends a considerable way into the sea ; and it is probable, that the current 

 thus runs 1 miles an hour against this neck of land, the water there meets 

 so violent an opposition in its course, as occasions it to rebound so forcibly, 

 that part of it returns back along the same coast, and so out of the Straits 

 mouth ; which, with the small tide that sets out on the Spanish shore, it is 

 believed may exhaust a considerable part of the current which continually sets 

 in to the eastward, at the rate abovemcntioned. It is very remarkable, that in 

 the year \7\'l, Mons. du L'Aigle, that fortunate and generous commander of 

 the Privateer called the Phoenix of Marseilles, giving chase, near Ceuta Point, 

 to a Dutch ship bound for Holland, he came up with her in the middle of the 

 gut, between TarifFa and Tangier, and there gave her one broad-side, which 

 directly sunk her, all her men being saved by Mons. du L'Aigle; and a few 

 days after, the sunk ship, with her cargo of brandy and oil, arose on the shore 

 near Tangier, which is at least 4 leagues to the westward of the place were she 

 sunk, and directly against the strength of the current ; which has persuaded 



* It will be seen in a subsequent part of this Vol. that Mr. Ranby has rendered it probable 

 that what Signior Valsalva conceived to be excretory ducts of the glandiil.-e renales, were 

 arteries. 



