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° 31' 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 



