102 THE OCEAN RIVER 



to the shore. During the century before the westward crossing 

 of Columbus, for instance, the Portuguese had with great 

 perseverance developed a trade route to Guinea along the 

 West African coast; and they therefore knew by hard experi- 

 ence of the Guinea Current, which sets to the south and 

 southeast around Cape Nun on the bulge of North Africa, in 

 places as strongly as three and a half knots. Combined with 

 the north and northeasterly winds, this was a great handicap 

 even to the Portuguese caravels, which, with their fore-and-aft 

 rigs, were much better equipped to sail against the wind than 

 Columbus' hermaphrodite-rigged craft. 



Probably the first signs of far-ranging currents in the open 

 ocean were strange objects cast ashore — seeds, branches of 

 trees, and pieces of wood, brought from the western world by 

 the Ocean River to the shores of northern Europe, just as 

 today we find on the Atlantic beaches of North America the 

 glass floats of Portuguese fishing nets, brought there by the 

 Canaries Current, the equatorial drift, and the Florida Cur- 

 rent. The presence of these objects from the western world 

 was certainly known to Columbus. The sea-bean — about 

 the size and shape of a horse chestnut — the seed of a West 

 Indian plant, Entada gigas^ is often thrown on European 

 shores, together with bamboo stems and even an occasional 

 coconut. Particularly large quantities are found on the shores 

 of the Faroe Islands, between Scotland and Iceland. Whether 

 this exotic sea drift influenced the westward migrations of 

 the Norsemen we do not know, but it is certain from their 

 accounts that they met with currents off the coast of North 

 America; names given by them to geographic features of their 

 discoveries make this clear. Among them are Straumsfiord or 

 Bay of Currents, Straummes, Cape of Currents, and Straum- 

 soe. Island of Currents. Unfortunately their writings leave us 

 no way of identifying the exact localities described. 



The first well-defined observation of the west-going limb 



