296 Mr. Redfield on the Currents of the Atlantic. 
both sides of the equator, has been glanced at in the foregoing 
remarks on tides. One of the most active, if not the best known 
current of this oceanic system, is the Gulf Stream of the North 
Atlantic. It appears to be established that a main portion of the 
Gulf Stream moves from the American coast towards the Azores 
and the Canary Islands, and thence along the coast of North Af- 
rica, turning westward till it again coincides with the equatorial 
current in its course towards the Caribbean Sea. ‘This great cir- 
cuit of the ocean current is found to coincide, mainly, with that 
which is also performed by the general winds in the basin of the 
North Atlantic. For the trade winds, on leaving the tropical 
latitudes, pass eastwardly through the temperate zone, but in 
amore irregular manner, sweeping around the track of ocean 
known as the grassy sea and the belt of summer calms, which 
lies a few degrees north of the tropic, known to navigators as 
the horse latitudes. It isin this extratropical region of calms 
that the major axis of this great elliptical circuit of general winds . 
appears to lie. It is this calm region that separates the general 
westerly winds of the higher latitudes from the trade winds of 
which they are the counterpart; and it is chiefly these westerly 
winds of the higher latitudes which, in the performance of their 
great circuit of revolution, are again merged in the regular trade 
winds.* But let us return to the consideration of the more lim- 
ited currents which prevail in the ocean. 
* I may add, that so far as the writer is concerned, the first exhibition of this 
view is found in my communication published in Silliman’s Journal for April, 
1831, Vol. xx, p. 50. In this instance, however, I have ascribed the currents of 
the ocean solely to the force of the winds, in compliance with the common the- 
ory; a view which I soon after found reason to abandon. The outlines of the 
great systems of horizontal revolution in the winds I have also sketched in my 
summary of “ Facts in Meteorology,’ which appeared in Silliman’s Journal for 
October, 1833, Vol. xxv, pp. 122-135. Previous to this period, I had examined the 
journals of whalers who had cruised on the “ off shore ground” of the North Pa- 
cific, in that belt of calms and light winds near the latitude of 30°, which is 
the favorite resort of the sperm whales in that sea, and which corresponds to the 
so called “ horse latitudes’’ of the Atlantic. From this and other like evidence I 
had arrived at the conclusions which I now maintain. 
Sir John F. W. Herschel maiztains the connection or continuity of the trades 
with the prevailing westerly winds of higher latitudes; and refers to the well 
reasoned explanations of Capt. Basil Hall, based on the common theory. He also 
adds an important suggestion on the velocity of winds which subside from a higher 
position in the atmosphere, and which may serve to explain the steady violence 
which sometimes pertains to westerly gales in the United States and or the North 
Atlantic.— Treatise on Astronomy, section 200 and ante. 
