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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



which may be differently explained. It has been mentioned, that the Black Sea pours its 

 surplus waters, through the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, into the Grecian Archipelago. 

 The current here flows at the rate of from two to four miles an hour, and is occasionally 

 so strong that ships experience great difficulty in making way against it. The exploit of 

 Leander and Byron, who swam across the Hellespont, conquering the power of the stream, 

 has acquired celebrity. This is one of the sites where it has been imagined that there is 

 an under-current flowing upwards from the Archipelago to the Black Sea. The saltness 

 of the water of the latter, which is only one-seventh less than that of the Atlantic, and 

 fully one-tenth more than that of the Baltic, has suggested this idea. While receiving an 

 immense influx of fresh water from numerous large rivers, and having a constant outflow, 

 this degree of saltness is certainly a singular problem ; and it has been thought difficult 

 to account for it, otherwise than by supposing an under-current communicating the salt- 

 ness of the Archipelago to the Euxine. But salt prevails extensively in the countries 

 along its north and north-eastern shores, a considerable portion of which, finding its way 

 to the sea, may be the true cause of its waters being so largely impregnated by it. The 

 physical condition of the Mediterranean has also been deemed inexplicable, except upon 

 a similar supposition. While a perpetual stream flows into it from the Black Sea through 

 the channels named, there is another from the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar ; 

 and to account for the disposal of the quantity of water flowing inward, a submarine 

 current, flowing outward at the Straits, has been maintained by many philosophers. The 

 following circumstance has been considered to be confirmative of this opinion. M. Du 

 L'Aigle, the commander of a privateer called the Phoenix, of Marseilles, gave chace to a 

 Dutch merchant ship, near Ceuta Point, and came up with her in the middle of the 

 Straits, between Tariffa and Tangier, and gave her a broadside which directly sunk the 



Straits of Gibraltar. 



vessel. A few days after, the sunk ship, with its cargo of brandy and oil, arose on the 

 shore near Tangier, which is at least four leagues to the westward of the place where she 

 sunk, and directly against the strength of the current from the Atlantic. Besides, how- 

 ever, this current, there are two lateral currents in the Straits, one on the European and 

 the other on the African side, which alternately flow outward and inward with the tide ; 

 and the drifting of the vessel to the rear of the spot in the main stream where she sank 

 might be occasioned by one of these lateral currents, at that time flowing out of the 



