On the Gulf Stream and Currents of the Sea. 167 



there is every reason to believe that this polar current is quite 

 equal in volume to the Gulf Stream. Are they not the effects 

 of like causes ? If so, what have the trade winds to do with one 

 more than the other ? 



It is a custom often practised by seafaring people to throw bot- 

 tles overboard with a paper stating the time and place at which 

 it is done. In the absence of other information as to currents, 

 that afforded by these mute little navigators is of great value. 

 They leave no tracks behind them, it is true, and their routes 

 cannot be ascertained. But knowing where they were cast, and 

 seeing where they are found, some idea may be formed as to 

 their course. Straight lines may at least be drawn, showing the 

 shortest distance from the beginning to the end of their voyage, 

 with the time elapsed. 



I have a chart representing in this way the tracks of more than 

 one hundred bottles.* From it, it appears that the waters from 

 every part of the Atlantic tend towards the Gulf of Mexico and 

 its stream. Bottles cast into the sea midway between the old 

 an'd new worlds, near the coasts of Europe, Africa, and America, 

 at the extreme north and farthest south, have been found either 

 in the West Indies or within the well known range of the Gulf 

 Stream. 



Midway of the Atlantic, in the triangular space between the 

 Azores, Canaries, and the Cape de Verd Islands, is the Sargasso 

 Sea, covering an area equal in extent to the Mississippi valley. 

 It is so thickly matted over with gulf-weed, [Fucus nutans,) 

 that the speed of vessels passing through it is often much retard- 

 ed. When the companions of Columbus saw it, they thought 

 it marked the limits of navigation, and became alarmed. Patches 

 of the weed are always to be seen floating along the Gulf Stream. 

 Now if bits of cork, or chaff, or any floating bodies be put in a 

 basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, all the light 

 substances will be found crowding together near the centre of 

 the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is 

 the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso Sea is 

 the centre of the whirl. Certain observations as to its limits, 

 extending back for fifty years, assure us that its position has not 



* Of many thousands that have been cast into the sea, these are all that bare 

 been found and recorded. 



