CURRENTS OF THE ATLANTIC 



81 



of Southern Europe, and of North-west Africa, the Main Equatorial 

 carries to the same region the sweepings of both sides of the South 

 Atlantic. The burden borne westward by the current just named 

 is, indeed, a motley one. Some of the greatest rivers in the world, 

 the rivers of two continents, contribute to its freight, the Niger, 

 the Congo, the Plate, the Amazon, and the Orinoco. Great im- 

 portance is attached to the fact that the drift of the North and 

 Main Equatorial Currents mingles in the Caribbean Sea (pp. 73-74). 



12. Attention is drawn to the interest that attaches itself to the 

 island of Trinidad from the standpoint of the dispersal of plants by 

 currents. It is the great centre of connection between the Old and 

 the New World and between the South American mainland and the 

 West Indian islands (p. 74). 



13. The probability that Amazon seed-drift reaches the shores of 

 Europe opens up the possibility of West African seed-drift from the 

 Congo and the Niger arriving on these coasts by the same circuitous 

 route — namely, through the West Indies and in the Gulf Stream drift. 

 This track seems to have been pursued by a bottle which was found 

 afloat off the coast of Guernsey, after being dropped overboard near 

 the island of Ascension. Sabine's observation on the transport of 

 casks of palm oil from the Gulf of Guinea to Hammerfest bears on 

 this point (pp. 75-76). 



14. When we come to balance the account respecting the inter- 

 change of seed-drift between the Old and the New World, we learn 

 that in the give-and-take process the gifts from the New to the Old 

 World would be slight. As a rule they would be unimportant, 

 ineffective,- and casual, and even when effective of a belated kind. 

 Not for a moment could a comparison be made with the large amount 

 of effective seed-drift that must be rushed in a few months across 

 the tropical Atlantic in the streams of the North and Main Equatorial 

 Currents (p. 76). 



15. In conclusion, it is shown that even the North Cape, Cape 

 Agulhas, and Cape Horn form no insuperable barriers for the passage 

 of seed-drift (p. 78). 



WORKS QUOTED IN CONNECTION WITH BOTTLE-DRIFT 

 Becher, A. B., in Nautical Magazine for 1843 and 1852. 



Berghaus, H., Allgemeinen Lander und Volkerkunde, i., 1837, and Physikalischen 

 Atlas (Abth. Hydrogr.). 



Daussy, Sur les observations de courants faites au moyen de bouteilles jetees a la 

 mer, Comptes Bendus, 1839, viii., 81. 



Kohl, J. G., Geschichte des Golfstroms und seiner Erforschung : Bremen, 1868. 



Monaco, Prince Albert of, Sur le Gulf Stream: Paris, 1886 (Gauthier-Villars) ; 

 different papers in Comptes Bendus, 1885-92, the final summary and tabulation 

 of results in tome 114, 1892. 



Neumayer, G., Petermann's Geographischen Mittheilungen, 1868. 



Page, J., The U.S. Hydrographic Office, National Geographic Magazine, xii., 337 : 



New York, 1901. 

 Purdy, J., in Columbian Navigator, iii., 31, 1839. 



