CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
451 
The northeast trades were entered on the 15th of May; the diffe¬ 
rence of temperature being similar, and the current setting us to the 
southwest and west thirty-four miles. On the 16th we crossed the 
equator, in longitude 30° 30' W. At 6 a. m., the same day, the ther¬ 
mometer at one hundred fathoms depth rose to 68*5°, being the same 
temperature as that experienced before the 14th, when we encountered 
the cold submarine current. We had crossed this current in a direc¬ 
tion nearly at right angles to its flow, and I estimated its width at two 
hundred miles. The current on the 19th still set to the southward; 
the difference between the deep-sea and the surface temperature being 
found to be again twenty-four degrees. This was also the case on the 
20th, on which day I tried the temperature at fifty fathoms depth, and 
there found it only five degrees lower than at the surface. This second 
submarine stream was found to be about eighty miles in width: we 
crossed it steering a northwest-by-north course. It may be that these 
submarine streams flow here to the south, and produce the southerly 
current we experienced. It was quite evident, from the numerous long 
lines of rips that we passed, that opposing currents existed of great 
force, which did not find their way to the surface. These rips extended 
in a north-northwest and south-southeast direction. 
During the next five days, we pursued our homeward course rapidly, 
experiencing but little current. On the 26th, we reached the latitude 
of 16° N., and longitude 48° 3T W. The temperature at one hundred 
fathoms depth differed only three degrees from that at the surface, and 
continued to vary between that and seven degrees, until we struck 
soundings. 
On the 28th, we encountered quantities of the Fucus natans, or gulf- 
weed, which was of a dark brown colour, and evidently undergoing 
decomposition. The peculiarity of this weed arranging itself into long 
strips in the direction of the wind, was distinctly seen. Some of these 
were more than a mile in length, while at other times we passed 
through fields of several acres in extent. During this and the previous 
day, as well as the two following days, the current was found to set to 
the southward, at the rate of about eighteen miles in twenty-four hours. 
On the 2d of June, we had reached latitude 29° N., and longitude 68° 
W.; and the wind, which had been gradually hauling from the north¬ 
ward and eastward round to the south-southwest, began to fail us. We 
had light and variable breezes from this day until the 8th, when we 
reached the neighbourhood of the Gulf Stream, and experienced the 
weather that is peculiar to it. The lightning was very vivid, and the 
rain fell in torrents; its temperature was 63°. In the latter part of the 
