CURRENTS OF THE ATLANTIC 59 



Florida region; and we have a good example in the case of those 

 from the African side numbered 206 in Schott's memoir (map ii., 

 pp. 9, 23, 26). Starting from a position about 150 miles south-west 

 of the Cape Verde Islands (lat. 13° 16' N., long. 25° 51' W.) on May 19, 

 1887, it was recovered at Clifden, on the west coast of Ireland (Co. 

 Galway), on March 17, 1890. The distance traversed in its passage 

 in the North Equatorial to the West Indies, and thence to Europe 

 in the Gulf Stream drift, was computed at 7700 miles by the southern 

 route through the Lesser Antilles and then across the Caribbean Sea 

 and the Gulf of Mexico, and at 6300 miles by the more direct northern 

 passage between the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles. Dr. Schott 

 gives a facsimile of the paper enclosed in the bottle, duly filled up 

 and signed by the sender and the finder. It is not possible to deter- 

 mine which of the two routes in West Indian waters this bottle 

 pursued; but that drift from the Caribbean Sea may reach the 

 shores of Europe is indicated by the track of a bottle (No. 110) in 

 the Nautical Magazine for 1852. It was thrown over about a hundred 

 miles off the south coast of Jamaica in lat. 16° N. and long. 78° 5' W., 

 and was found on the coast of Ireland ; but the time occupied in the 

 drift is not supplied. Such are some of the principal indications 

 afforded by bottle-drift of the work that would be performed by the 

 North Equatorial Current in carrying seed-drift from the Old to the 

 New World. 



However, some curious questions arise in connection with the 

 debatable region of the Guinea Current. To the southward of the 

 Cape Verde Group and confined between the parallels of 2° S. and 

 10° N.j and between the meridians of 20° and 32° W., lies a region in 

 which the bottles become the sport of conflicting currents. Here 

 the Guinea Current flowing east is interposed between the North and 

 Main Equatorial Currents flowing west, and, owing to the shifting 

 boundaries of the several streams, bottles cast over at the same spot 

 may be carried to opposite sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Schott (pp. 10, 

 18; map i.) gives the case of two bottles thrown together into the 

 sea a little north and east of St. Paul's Rocks, one being recovered on 

 the coast of Sierra Leone and the other on the shores of Nicaragua. 

 In the same note of the Appendix (Note 19) in which the details of 

 these remarkable drifts are given, reference is made to the possibility 

 that under certain conditions seeds may be transported from the 

 coasts of North Brazil to the shores of Sierra Leone and Liberia in 

 the counter- current formed at certain seasons by the westward 

 extension of the Guinea Current. This is probably a rare event, but 

 a particular example of bottle- drift is mentioned in this connection. 

 With this exception, no opportunity of American seed-drift reaching 

 Africa across the tropical latitudes of the North Atlantic is indicated 

 by the numerous bottle-drift data at my disposal. 



The Currents of the South Atlantic. — Before proceeding to 

 deal with the passage of bottle-drift across the South Atlantic in the 

 Main and South Equatorial Currents, I will state the view of the 

 currents in this ocean that is adopted in these pages. It seems 

 usual to speak in a collective sense of the Southern Equatorial 

 Current as dividing, when approaching Cape St. Roque, into the 



