CURRENTS AND WHALING. 493 



Verde Islands owe their origin, as well as all others prevailing near 

 islands and banks; and as corroborative proof of this I will mention 

 the fact that where no submarine polar stream exists permanent cur- 

 rents are not found. This will, I trust, be amply shown in the sequel. 



That remarkable current along the coast of Guinea, from which it 

 derives its name, passing Cape Palmas, and flowing into the Bight of 

 Benin, I attribute to the same cause. This current is in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the Equatorial Stream, but runs in an opposite 

 direction, and for a long distance parallel to it. Of this current the 

 following remarks were made by Colonel Sabine, when he passed 

 it in H. B. M. ship Pheasant, Captain Clavering, in 1822. 



" In the voyage between Cape Mount and Cape Three Points, 

 in April and May, 1822, the Pheasant's progress appears to have 

 been accelerated one hundred and eighty miles by the current 

 called the Guinea Current, which, in the season when the south- 

 west winds prevail on this part of the coast, runs with considerable 

 velocity, in the direction of the land, from Cape Palmas to the 

 eastern part of the Gulf of Guinea. The breadth of this current, 

 abreast of Cape Palmas, varies with the season, and has been found 

 as much as one hundred and eighty miles; but, in its subsequent 

 course to the eastward, it enlarges to nearly three hundred, and occu- 

 pies the whole space between the land on one side, and the Equatorial 

 Current, running in an opposite direction, on the other. The velocity 

 abreast of Cape Palmas and Cape Three Points, and in the vicinity 

 of the land, was, in the month of May, about two miles in the hour ; 

 and farther to the eastward, where the Pheasant crossed its breadth, 

 from Cape Formosa to St. Thomas's, and where its velocity had been 

 much diminished by the dissipation of its waters, it was found to 

 preserve a general rate of rather less than a mile an hour, and a 

 direction a few degrees to the southward of east. 



" The general temperature of the stream in the mid-channel, in the 

 Gulf of Guinea, in April and May, exceeds 84°, diminishing from 

 82° and 83° on its southern border, where it is in contact with the 

 colder water of the Equatorial Current ; and occasionally to between 

 79° and 81^° on its northern side, in the proximity of land. 



" In the passage between the river Gaboon and Ascension, being a 

 distance of one thousand four hundred miles, the Pheasant was aided 

 by the current above three hundred miles in the direction of her 

 course. 



" But the more important distinction, both in amount and in utility 



vol. v. 124 



