48 



trade winds*. To this general impulsion, which 

 these trade winds give the surface of the seas, 

 we must attribute the equinoctial current, the 

 force and rapidity of which are not sensibly mo- 

 dified by the local variations of the atmosphere. 



In the channel which the Atlantic has dug 

 between Guiana and Guinea, on the meridian 

 of 20 or 23 degrees, from the 8th or 9th to the 

 2d or 3d degrees of northern latitude, where the 

 trade winds are often interrupted by the winds 

 which blow from the south, and south-south- 

 west, the equinoctial current is more inconstant 

 in it's direction. Towards the coasts of Africa, 

 the vessels are drawn towards the south-east ; 

 whilst towards the Bay of All-saints and Cap e 

 St. Augustin, the coasts of which are dreaded by 

 navigators who are sailing towards the mouth of 

 the Plata, the general motion of the waters is 

 masked by a particular current, the effects of 

 which extend from Cape St. Roche to the Isle of 

 Trinidad ; and which runs north-west with a 

 mean velocity of a foot or a foot and a half 

 every second. 



The equinoctial current is felt, though feebly, 

 even beyond the Tropic of Cancer, in the 26th 



* Halley, on the cause of the general trade winds, in the 

 Philosoph. Trans, for the year 1735, p. 58. Ballon, Meteorolog. 

 Exp. and Essays J 793, p. 89. L.aplace, Explan. of the System 

 of the World, p. 227. The limits of the trade winds were* 

 *or the first time, determined by Dampierre, in 1666. 



