10 HANDY BOOK OP 



This temperate region is sprinkled over with the thickly- 

 scattered isles of Greece, and many a classic spot, 



4 Which seen from fair Colonna's height, 

 Makes glad the heart that hails the sight, 

 And lends to loneliness delight, 

 "Where mildly dimpling ocean's cheek, 

 Ke fleets the tints of many a peak 

 Caught by the laughing tides that lave 

 These Edens of the eastern wave." 



5th. The Tropical Atlantic, in which sargassum, rhodo- 

 melia, corrallinea, and siphinea abound. 



6th. The South Atlantic, that vast extent of ocean which 

 extends from the coasts of South America to those of Africa. 

 In this division thefucus reappears. Throughout its might 

 of waters passes also that portion of the Gulf Stream which 

 Eennell designates as the South Atlantic current, varying 

 in its rapid course of twenty-five to seventy-nine miles 

 daily, in its breadth from one hundred and sixty to four 

 hundred and fifty miles, the length of its whole course being 

 one thousand miles, till lost in the Caribbean Sea. A current 

 so vast and deep, that the same accurate observer charac- 

 terizes it as an oceanic river, having a rapidity exceeding 

 that of the largest navigable rivers ; and so deep as to be 

 occasionally turned aside by subaqueous banks or mountains, 

 which yet do not rise within forty or fifty, or even one 

 hundred, fathoms of the surface. 



And yet, however botanically divided into different 

 regions, with their dissimilar floras, one singular fact per- 

 tains to the Atlantic — namely, the absence of coral reefs, 

 either on the west coasts of Africa, or among the islands of 

 the Gulf of Guinea, around St. Helena, or Ascension, Cape 

 Yerde, or St. Paul's. With the solitary exception of Ber- 

 muda, there is not a single coral reef in the central expanse 

 of the Atlantic, although some portion of its waters, as at 

 Ascension, are charged to excess with calcareous matter. 



