468 
CURRENTS AND WHALING. 
therefore nearer the place of its growth; then again, there is no 
evidence that any drift-wood, or other terrestrial product, is found in 
the Sargasso Sea ; and in the third place, the currents that have already 
been spoken of, appear rather to set from it, thus indicating that it has 
a higher level than other parts of the ocean. That such difference 
of level has a physical cause, there can be no reasonable question. 
To connect the previous part of our subject with the currents of the 
Southern Atlantic, we return to the Equatorial Stream. This was met 
by us, as has been seen, in latitude 3° S. To avoid the difficulties that 
this stream may cause, vessels outward-bound ought so to shape their 
course as to avoid entering it too soon. Should they neglect this, they 
may be set behind or to the westward of Cape St. Roque. For the 
same reason, the further to the westward the equator is crossed on the 
return voyage, the better. These directions have sometimes been 
ascribed wholly to the winds, which are represented as scant and un¬ 
favourable in places other than those which the current would render 
favourable for crossing the line. This may be in some degree true, 
for the winds which in these parts of the ocean are always light, may 
be affected and drawn along with so rapid a stream. The polar origin 
of this Equatorial Stream will be rendered more probable from the 
relative temperatures of the parts of the ocean whence it flows, and of 
those where no current prevails. 
On the south coast of Brazil a current is found setting at first to the 
southwest, and gradually changing its direction to south, until at the 
mouth of the La Plata it ceases to be experienced, but appears then to 
incline to the eastward, and spreads itself over the surface of the 
Southern Atlantic. This is a phenomenon whose analogy to our Gulf 
Stream cannot fail to be observed, and the resemblance becomes 
stronger when it is seen that off the mouth of the La Plata it is met 
by the Patagonian Current, a branch of the Great South Polar Stream, 
that comes round Cape Horn, and sets along the coast of the country 
whence it is named. This stream seems, like that of Labrador, to 
throw a branch (that has been mistaken for an eddy) between the 
southwest current and the coast. Such at least would appear to be 
the case from the extent to which low temperatures prevail north¬ 
wards, as was particularly noted off Cape # Frio, and is exhibited in 
the direction of the isothermal lines on the chart. 
The main body of this, or perhaps another southern polar stream 
that enters the Atlantic, is often encountered on the surface to the 
northward and eastward of the Falkland Islands. \t times, icebergs 
are borne along by it to the northeast, and in the neighbourhood of 
those islands the whole sea has been described as occasionally covered 
