On Currents in Water, 



343 



rection of the motion of the plane, and when rolled towards the cir- 

 cumference, it will fall behind the part towards which it was directed. 

 If the waters of the North Pacific Ocean were discharged by an 

 under current or aperture, at the latitude of forty five degrees, upon 

 the foregoing principles, the currents from the pole would pass upon 

 the western side of the aperture, and those from the equator upon 

 the eastern. These currents would therefore not meet to balance 

 and destroy each other's force, but falling upon opposite sides of the 

 center of the aperture with opposite directions, and being acted upon 

 by the attraction of gravitation, producing a current from the higher 

 surface at the circumference of the aperture, towards the less eleva- 

 ted part near its center, by the composition of forces a rotary motion 

 would be produced in the direction of east, north, west, south, (fig. 2.) 



I am aware that some persons may be satisfied that the cause assign- 

 ed is sufficient to produce the effect upon large bodies of water, who 

 may not believe that any possible effect can be produced by it, on 

 the contents of a small vessel, as a tub or bucket, the diameter of 

 which, when compared with the distance from the equator to the 

 poles, seems to shrink into nothing. They, however, should recol- 

 lect, that if any cause thus acts upon large bodies of fluids, a like 

 action, not differing in kind, must be exerted upon the smallest and 

 most minute quantity ; and that a perfect equihbriura will be de- 

 stroyed, by the least appreciable disturbing force. 



