31 



parts the currents vary, running sometimes to the N. E., but 

 more frequently to the S. W. " a glance of the eye on the 

 direction of the coast is sufficient to prove that it should ne- 

 cessarily follow one of those courses." 



Lieutenant Blight, when in latitude 2° north, longitude 

 20° west, discovered a current setting to the N. E., at the 

 rate of 14' in fourteen hours. 



Vancouver found strong and irregular currents between 

 the Isle of St. Antonio, one of the Cape de Verds, and Cape 

 St. Augustine, and, in consequence, contests the opinion of 

 Nicholson, in his hypothesis given in his East-India sailing 

 directions, published in 1787, by which it appears, the cur- 

 rent should set regularly to the north at that season of the 

 year, (July.) The observations of Vancouver, however, so 

 far from operating against my theory, serve to establish it. 

 For, according to him, the Gulf Stream, in following the di- 

 rection given by the coast of America, the Banks of New- 

 foundland, and the prevalence of northerly winds in the 

 northern hemisphere, should produce a southeast current 

 among the Cape dc Verds, which, as it falls in with the cur« 

 rent occasioned by the N. E. and E. trades, takes a direc- 

 tion southwesterly, combining at length with the trade cur- 

 rent and current from the Brazil coast, and flowing off to the 

 west. 



Vancouver has not given us any data from which we 

 may draw any just conclusions: he observes, "From the 

 Isle of St. Antonio, as far south as Cape St. Augustine, the 

 currents are very irregular, and in the latitude of 6° north 

 there is a strong ripple. Those currents, notwithstanding 

 the general opinion, do not appear to have any irregularity ; 

 for it appeared that we were set in a different direction 

 from the one we expected from its effects on us the prece- 

 ding day ; and those that we most experienced had a 

 southerly direction, and more frequently to the southeast 

 than to the southwest." 



The ripple of which Vancouver makes mention, I also 

 discovered, and in the same latitude, with a very high and 

 irregular swell from the northward. The ripple I attribu- 

 ted entirely to the meeting of the currents ; and, perhaps, 

 the swell may be owing, in some measure, to the same 

 causQ, though I rather think it owing to banks formed in 



