CURRENTS AND WHALING. 
465 
enlarges to nearly three hundred, and occupies the whole space between 
the land on one side, and the Equatorial Current, running in an oppo¬ 
site 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 mills 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 3 and 8H° 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 
in navigation, is between the waters of the Equatorial and Guinea 
Currents. These exhibit the remarkable phenomenon of parallel 
streams, in contact with each other, flowing with great velocity in 
opposite directions, and having a difference of temperature amounting 
to ten or twelve degrees. Their course continues to run parallel to 
each other, and to the land, for above one thousand miles; and, ac¬ 
cording as a vessel, required to proceed along the coast in either 
direction, is placed in the one or in the other current, will her course 
be aided from forty to fifty miles a day, or retarded to the same 
amount.” 
This Guinea Current is lost in the Bight of Benin, near Prince’s 
Island; which lies under the equator, in the longitude of 7° E., and 
it is confined and obstructed by a southern polar stream, much in the 
same manner as the Labrador is affected by the Gulf Stream on the 
coast of the United States, and which is supposed to be lost near Cape 
Hatteras. 
Beyond the Cape de Verdes, overfalls, rips, and a continual tendency 
to change in the surface of the ocean, are experienced, as if two great 
conflicting submarine currents were meeting at some depth beneath 
the surface. 
As we proceeded on our route from Porto Praya to Rio Janeiro, 
the same appearances continued; but we did not meet the Equatorial 
59 
vor,. v. 
