GULF-STREAM. 27 
which these winds give to the surface of the ocean 
that the phenomenon in question is to be attributed. 
This current carries the waters of the Atlantic 
towards the Mosquito and Honduras coasts, from 
which they move northwards, and passing into the 
Gulf of Mexico follow the bendings of the shore 
from Vera Cruz to the mouth of the Rio del Norte, 
and from thence to the mouths of the Mississippi 
and the shoals at the southern extremity of Florida. 
After performing this circuit, it again directs it- 
self northward, rushing with great impetuosity 
through the Straits of Bahama. At the end of these 
narrows, in the parallel of Cape Canaveral, the 
flow, which rushes onward like a torrent sometimes 
at the rate of five miles an hour, runs to the north- 
east. Its velocity diminishes and its breadth en- 
larges as it proceeds northward. Between Cape 
Biscayo and the Bank of Bahama the width is 
only 52 miles, while in 283° of lat. it is 59; and 
in the parallel of Charlestown, opposite Cape Hen- 
lopen, it is from 138 to 173 miles, the rapidity being 
from three to five miles an hour where the stream is 
narrow, and only one mile as it advances towards 
the north. To the east of Boston and in the meri- 
dian of Halifax the current is nearly 276 miles 
broad. Here it suddenly turns towards the east ; its 
western margin touching the extremity of the great 
bank of Newfoundland. From this to the Azores 
it continues to flow to the E. and E.S.E., still re- 
taining part of the impulse which it had received 
nearly 1150 miles distant in the Straits of Florida. 
In the meridian of the Isles of Corvo and Flores, the 
most western of the Azores, it is not less than 552 
miles in breadth. From the Azores it directs itself 
