316 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CURRENTS. 



1'' 14' S. and 1' 54' E. So that in four days the vessel was set, by a counter-carreat, 

 74 miles South and 65 miles East, or nearly S. 41^ E., about 99 miles; equal to a 

 daily average of 24| miles. 



Off the Coast of Portugal. — A Bottle from the brig Freeland, Captain T. Midgley 

 (from Liverpool to Africa), inlat. 41^ 50' N., long. 14^ 23' W., February 11th, 1833, 

 was picked up close to the shore, off the Harbour of Vigo, on March 1st following, 

 having traversed, in a true E. \ N. direction, about 240 miles. 



St. George's Channel to Cape St. Vincent. — On August 14th, 1823, Captain Living- 

 ston, in the sloop Favourite, on his passage from Liverpool to Gibraltar, took his 

 departure from the Smalls Lighthouse, and thence he regularly made observations 

 on the Current, &c., so far as adverse weather permitted. On the 28rd he had 

 arrived on the parallel of 46" 23' ; previously to which the course seems to have 

 been materially affected by the Tide, but here the differences amounted to 51' 55" 

 Southerly, and only 4' 39" Northerly. From lat. 46' 23', on August 23rd, to lat. 

 36° 52', on August 31st, the Current invariably predominated to the Southward, 

 and between these parallels amounted to 89 miles in the eight days. 



At 4'' 53"" of August 31st, with Cape St. Vincent bearing true North, an excellent 

 meridian altitude of the planet Saturn gave lat. 36^" 52' 8". The total Southing to 

 this point gave 2" 18', and the difference of longitude between dead-reckoning and 

 that by landfall gave 1" 42' 1" of Easting. 



In the brig Friends, of Glasgow, August 24th, 1820, Captain Livingston states — 

 " The current set us round Cape St. Vincent without our having seen the cape, 

 though we steered courses for the purpose of seeing it, and we were looking out 

 for it, when I got a lunar, and ascertained thai we were then past it. Immediately 

 after this the sea became smooth, being broken off by the cape." 



Between Cajie Finisterre and the Azores, the general drift of the surface of the 

 sea appears to be to the South-Eastward; varying, however, to the East and West, 

 and even to the Northward, as the winds operate, either one way or the other, 

 more especially during winter, as already noticed. 



H.M.S. Pactolus, in May, 1816, experienced a current South a little East, at the 

 average rate of 30 miles a day, from the English Channel to St. Michael's. 



Captain Charles Hare, in the brig Ward, from New Brunswick, September, 1823, 

 with Westerly winds, which had prevailed for fourteen days, between lat. 43" 40' 

 and 45° 20', long. 22i^° to 16% foimd the current E.S.E., li mile in the hour. 



Between Portugal and the Western Islands. — Captain George Cheveley, in June, 

 1830, lat. 44° to 27°, long. 11° to 21°, found the Current set S.E., three-quarters 

 of a mile an hour. 



The Current along the Coast of Portugal appears to set nearly in the direction of 

 that coast. On the 25th of October, 1810, a gunboat for the service of Cadiz, being 

 in tow of the liebuff gun brig, broke adrift in a gale of wind, in lat. 39° 44', long. 

 9° 38' W. On the 19th of November following, his Majesty's sloop of war Colum- 

 bine, when cruizing 8 or 9 miles to the Westward of Cadiz Lighthouse, observed 

 a gunboat to leeward, which proved to be the identical boat that twenty-five days 

 before had broken adrift from the Rebuff. The distance traversed by the boat waa 

 about 350 miles, or 14 miles a day, chiefly by the Current, the wind in the mean- 

 time being so various as nearly to render the drift negative, or, if anything, against 

 the set of the Current. 



On the Currents setting toward the Bay of Biscay and the Strait of Gibraltar, 

 Captain, afterward Admiral, Sir Erasmus Gower made observations in five passages 



gone, during this interval of ll"* SI", 68 miles by the log, carefully attended to, la 

 smooth water. Now, allowing 2\ points of variation, we ought to have made 26' of 

 northing ; whereas, in point of fact, we made 13' only." 



Influenced, probably, by the Chauuel ebb, the Ciurreut appeared also to have a ten- 

 dency to the West. 



