CHARTING THE RIVER 105 



agree that these landes and regions pertayning to the Domin- 

 ion of Castile, do with one continuale tract and perpetual 

 bond embrace as one whole firme lands or continent all the 

 mayne lands lying to the north of Cuba and Hispaniola. Yet 

 as touching the course of the waters they vary in opinion, 

 for Andreas will, that his violent course of the water be re- 

 ceived into the lappe of the supposed continent, which bend- 

 eth so much and extendeth so farre toward the north, as 

 we have said, and that by the object or resistance of the 

 lande so bending and crooking the water as it were, rebounde 

 in compasse and by the force thereof be driven about the 

 north side of Cuba and the other islands excluded outside the 

 circle called Tropicus Cancri, where the largeness of the 

 sea may receive the waters falling from the narrow streams 

 and thereby represse that inordinate course by reason that 

 the sea is there very large and great." 



Peter Martyr obviously had not heard of a discovery made 

 by Ponce de Leon, or rather by his pilot, Antonio de Alaminos. 

 Though Ponce de Leon is better known for the fruitless quest 

 of his 1513 expedition, which set out to find the Fountain of 

 Youth, he has greater claim to fame for leaving one of the 

 first definite records of the Florida Current. He sailed from 

 Porto Rico along the northeastern side of the Bahamas, and 

 somewhat to the north of Cape Canaveral he crossed west- 

 ward into the Stream. When he turned southward along the 

 Florida coast he had a good and favorable wind, but he was 

 powerless to stem the powerful northerly flow. He tells us that 

 when two of the vessels came into anchor one day, the third, 

 in water too deep to do likewise, was rapidly carried out of 

 sight to the north by the fierce pull of the waters. 



The Gulf of Mexico was discovered in 1517 and explored 

 the following year, and this finally disproved the theory of a 

 break in the North American continent which would allow 

 the current a westward outlet. Thus it became inevitable that 



