106 THE OCEAN RIVER 



the great flood of water passing north from Cuba should 

 sooner or later be put to use by the Spanish vessels which 

 were plying in increasing numbers between the Old World 

 and the New. Antonio de Alaminos, pilot first with Columbus 

 and later with Ponce de Leon, was therefore well acquainted 

 at first hand with the Florida Current. He quickly took advan- 

 tage of it. When sent by Cortez from Mexico to deliver dis- 

 patches and presents to Spain, he chose to make his way 

 home by way of the Florida Straits so as to have the benefit 

 of the Stream until he turned eastward toward Spain. From 

 this time onward all sea traffic returning to Spain took advan- 

 tage of the Current. 



In the wake of the great flood of trading voyages and explor- 

 ing expeditions during the next fifty years, knowledge of the 

 directions and whereabouts of ocean currents began to pile 

 up in the professional gossip of sailors, but nothing further 

 was published; though there were many detailed accounts 

 of the newly discovered lands, people, and vegetation. Because 

 of the value of the cargoes carried by the Spanish vessels, their 

 routes and general navigational knowledge were still held 

 secret for security reasons. The sixteenth century had almost 

 come to a close before Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Martin Fro- 

 bisher, and others published their observations and confirmed 

 the earlier records of currents in the western ocean. 



Now that the idea of a westward passage through the Gulf 

 of Mexico to the rich Orient had finally been disproved, the 

 twin stimuli of greed and curiosity drove merchants and gov- 

 ernments to seek a northwest passage from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific; and the contemporary accounts of voyages re- 

 flected this new interest among the more adventurous sailor- 

 men. Gilbert, who argued that the Gulf Stream must find an 

 outlet either to the northeast or to the northwest, wrote that 

 the current ''. . . runs all along the eastern coast of that conti- 

 nent as far as Cape Freddo, being the farthest known place 

 of the same continent toward the north ... it must either 



