qf' Mr ScotCs Routes m North Africa. S41 
to a different encampment from the one they had quitted in 
El GUhlaK 
Art. hi . — Remarks on the Currents between the Parallels of 
Cape Finisterre and the Canary Islands^ which may he 
supposed to ham carried the Montezuma out of her course. 
By Major Rennell^ F. R. S., &c, &c. &c. 
I SHOULD consider myself highly culpable^ if I neglected to 
statej by way of caution to navigators, the result of my inqui- 
ries respecting the current which appear to have caused the 
shipwreck of the Montezuma^ and of a great number of other 
ships of our own and other nations, on the western coast of 
Barbary; having examined a multitude of journals of ships 
that have sailed in that track, with time-keepers on board, and 
which have also, when opportunities presented themselves, had 
their rate checked by celestial observations. 
The general result is, that navigators who depart from the 
parallel of the southern part of the Bay of Biscay, (or say 45°,) 
and sail in the usual track southward, will be assailed first by a 
SE. current, and then by an easterly one, until they have pas- 
sed the parallel of Cape Finisterre ; when the current will again 
turn to the south of east^ and gradually become a SE. current, 
till having passed Cape St Vincent, it becomes easterly again ; 
owing no doubt to the indraught of the Strait of Gibraltar ; and 
this easterly current is pretty general across the mouth of the 
bay between Cape St Vincent and Cape Cantin. 
Beyond this bay (which may be deemed the funnel.^ of which 
the Strait itself is the spout ^ the current again becomes SE..^ 
or rather more southerly, (as it is more easterly towards Cape 
Finisterre,) and continues as far as the parallel of S5°, and is 
moreover felt beyond Madeira westward ; that is, at least 130 
leagues from the coast of Africa, (beyond which a SW. current 
takes place, owing doubtless to the operation of the north-east 
trade-wind). 
VOL. IV. NO. 8. ATRIL 1821, U 
