OCEANOGRAPHY. 421 



Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, he never relaxed his observation of the 

 movement of the waters. At the "Serpent's Mouth," near the Gulf of 

 Paria, he saw that the current turned to the west; he recognized this 

 again on the coast of Honduras. Grouping the results of his experi- 

 ments he formulated an hypothesis and declared that the sea in its 

 advance followed the firmament from east to west. The true father of 

 oceanography is the Gulf Stream. It seems as if men had invented 

 the science solely to explain this current, which even to-day is the most 

 studied and best known of the phenomena of the ocean. For many 

 years all the sailing expeditions from Spain radiated around Hispa- 

 niola and Cuba. Ocampo sailed all around the latter island. In 1513 

 Ponce de Leon, having for pilot Anton de Alaminos (who had been 

 pilot for Columbus in his last voyage), set out in search of the Foun- 

 tain of Youth in Florida, and his vessel passed with difficulty through 

 the waters whose current set with great force toward the north. A 

 little later Diego Columbus, the son of the admiral, gathered together 

 his data, combined them, and as Pierre Martyr d'Angleria recounts, 

 asserted the continuity of this river of the ocean and that of the con- 

 tinent which checks it on the west and turns it back in a contrary 

 direction. Scientific data appeared. Anton de Alaminos, after he had 

 accompanied Cordova, then Grijalva, around Yucatan and the Gulf of 

 Mexico, became chief pilot of Cortez when he went to seize the empire 

 of Montezuma, and when the conqueror feared to be stopped by the 

 jealousies and intrigues of his enemies in Cuba and Madrid, in order 

 to baffle them, he charged his pilot to return in all haste to Spain and 

 carry to the court dispatches, and particularly presents. Alaminos was 

 the first to make use of his observations. To arrive more promptly he 

 took the longer route, and leaving Vera Cruz turned his vessel toward 

 the north of Cuba and the straits of Florida. We have here the three 

 successive phases — the oceanographic discovery, its formulation and use 

 for deductions, and lastly the putting it in practice. 



All seas were traversed. Bartholomeu Dias discovered the Cape of 

 Tempests; Vasco da Gama doubled it and entered the Indian Sea; 

 Magellan and his Basque pilot, Sebastian del Cano, made the first 

 voyage around the world; the Cabots, Jacques Cartier, Francis Drake, 

 Hudson, Willoughby, and many others went from all coasts seeking 

 empires or a more direct route by the north of America to India and 

 China. Navigation and geography gave rise to the first observations 

 relative to the sea. Each people, seeing, with reason, a competitor in 

 every other people, took the greatest care to guard the secret of its 

 discoveries. The Carthaginian boat, pursued by a more powerful 

 Roman vessel, did not hesitate to cast itself on the coast and to break 

 upon the rocks rather than indicate the way to the country of tin. 

 Vasco da Gama in his war vessel massacred the crew and passengers 

 of the poor Arabian boutre which he found laden with pilgrims in the 

 Indian Sea. However, despite all efforts, the facts which could be made 



