6o THE WATER 



far as the triangle between Norway, Spitsbergen and 

 Nova Zembla. In this region the weight of this water, 

 due to its high salinity causes it to sink in spite of its 

 temperature, and all traces of it are gradually lost. 

 The water shed off from the main drift in a south- 

 easterly direction about the Azores is mainly driven 

 again by the trade winds into the North Equatorial 

 Drift, which runs from east to west about io° N. 

 and so the cycle of the North Atlantic begins anew. 

 A branch, however, skirts the Guinea coast, and is 

 known as the North Africa Current. It probably finds 

 its way into the South Equatorial current. 



In the South Atlantic the south-east trades drive 

 water along a South Equatorial Drift from east to 

 west between o° and io° S. Impinging on Brazil, a 

 part of this turns north-west to join the North Equa- 

 torial, as we have seen ; the rest turns south-west as the 

 Brazil Current, sending off water south and south-east 

 into the rotatory circulation round the high-pressure 

 area. But the currents are here complicated by the 

 arrival of antarctic waters. In the Southern Ocean, 

 between 40 S. and 6o° S., there is a great Easterly 

 Antarctic Drift of cold water round the Pole, due 

 largely to the prevalent winds ("Roaring Forties"). 

 The deep southward projection of South America 

 seems to dam this to some extent, and as soon as the 

 drift is clear of the straits between the Horn and the 

 Antarctic continent (compare Fig. 4), a branch spreads 

 up northwards as the Falkland Islands Currents, corre- 

 sponding to the Labrador Current in the northern 

 half of the Atlantic. This cold water meeting the 

 warm Brazil Current off Rio de la Plato produces a 

 most extraordinary effect on the isotherms (Chart IV.). 

 The resultant waters get an easterly trend across 

 the ocean. Before reaching the longitude of the 



