CiiAP. XI.] OCEAxX CUmiENTS. 137 



As this north-westward current branches off from 

 the great westward current of the equatorial regions, 

 it obviously divides the counter- current running 

 eastwards in the western parts of the ocean from 

 the Guinea Current running eastwards in the eastern 

 parts of the ocean. 



I have noticed that a peculiarity in the configura- 

 tion of the bottom of the ocean appears to be the 

 cause of a portion of the great North Atlantic under- 

 current being forced to tlie surface of the ocean in 

 the neighbourhood of the Bermudas. And, con- 

 sidering the great mass of reported currents men- 

 tioned in Mr. Findlay's North Atlantic Memoir, it 

 would appear that the theoretical current E (Plate 

 IX.) is displaced from what would otherwise be its 

 natural course, in consequence of this same obstruction. 

 This appears to be so for the following reasons. 



Speaking of the Sargasso Sea, Mr. Findlay, in the 

 North Atlantic Memoir, says that he is ' assured, from 

 the comparison of a great number of journals, that in 

 the basin of the North Atlantic Ocean there exist two 

 banks of weeds, very different from each other ; the 

 most extensive is a little to the west of the meridian 

 of Fayal, one of the Azores, between lat. 25° and 

 lat. 36° : ' the second ' occupies a much smaller space 

 between the 26° and 22° of latitude, eighty leagues 

 east of the meridian of the Bahamas.'^ Such a 



^ Memoir Descriptive and Explanatory of the Northern Atlantic 

 Ocean., p. 292. 



