COAST OF POETUGAL, ETC. 



317 



to Madeira, from ■which he concluded the most general direction to be to tne S.E., 

 and the mean yelocity about 11 miles in every 150 miles.* 



In proceeding to Tenerife, Sir Erasmus Gower observed a constant Current set- 

 ting to the Southward at the rate of a mile an hour ; equal to 22 mUes in the 

 distance between Madeira and that island. 



Captain Mackintosh, of the Hindostan, who had made twenty passages in this 

 route, generally experienced a Current from the 39th degree of latitude to that of 

 the Canaries. In this part of the ocean he generally found, from repeated and 

 accurate observations, that this Current sets to the E.S.E. He found it strongest 

 opposite to the entrance into the Mediterranean or Strait of Gibraltar ; and, in 

 one voyage, the Current was computed, by his chronometer, to set about 40 miles 

 per day. This cvirrent inclines more Southerly as it approaches the Canaries. It 

 strikes on the coast of Morocco, and takes, about Cape Boiador, a different direc- 

 tion. Nearly inshore, from an indefinite point, one part of the stream sets North- 

 ward toward the Strait of Gibraltar, and the other part sets to the Southward. 



M. le Baron Eoussin, in the corvette Bayadere, bound from Kochefort to Brasil, 

 in February, 1819, after passing Cape Finisterre, found the prevailing Winds from 

 noon to noon, and Currents, as follow : — • 



But on arriving at the Canaries, with the wind North and N.E., the Current 

 had changed. 



* The effect of a Current setting to the South-Eastward, and the necessity of a com- 

 petent knowledge of Currents in general, cannot in any way be more forcibly shown 

 than by noticing the raelancholy catastrophe of His Majesty's ship Apollo, Captain 

 J. W. T. Dixon, and the merchant ships under her convoy, on the 2nd of April, 1804. 

 The Apollo, with sixty-nine ships for the West Indies, sailed from the Cove of Cork on 

 the 26th of March. With a fair wind, blowing strong, they steered about W.S.W. 

 until the 31st, when the wind changed more to the Westward. At noon, on the 1st of 

 April, latitude observed, 40° 51' N., longitude, by account, 12° 29'. At 8 p.m. the wind 

 shifted to S.W., and increased to a gale, with a heavy sea. The convoy stood to the 

 S.S.E., and, at half-past three next morning, struck on the coast of Portugal, in about 

 40° 22' N., 9 miles to the Northward of Cape Mondego. Captain Dixon, and about sixty 

 men of the Apollo, perished in their endeavours to reach the shore; the other part of 

 the crew remained two days clinging to a fixed part of the wreck, without nourishment. 

 About forty sail of merchantmen were wrecked about the same time ; some sank with 

 all their crews, and most of them lost several men. This lamentable event was 

 attributed to want of chronometric observations, and the consequent ignorance of the 

 Bet of the Current, which must certainly have been very strong. 



" The immediate cause of the loss of so many of the Apollo's convoy appears to have 

 been the blind confidence with which the conamanders followed their commodore ; 

 either keeping no reckoning themselves, or believing his more accurate than their own. 

 Several ships were saved by leaving the convoy, and it is said that the commander of a 

 Clyde ship warned the commodore of his danger in time to have avoided it." — A. L. 



A more recent example of the fatal effects of this current being disregarded is the loss 

 of the Anchor Line steamer Moumania. On the night of October 28th, 1892, she sud- 

 denly ran aground near Peniche, on the coast of Portugal, only two passengers and six 

 laecara saving theij lives out of a total complement of 112 crew and passengers. 



