and at the Sound near Elsinore. 
of the 3oof , the flame will go outward with the warm and light 
air blowing out as fast above as the heavy air comes in below. 
Lieutenant Patton, therefore, very naturally conceived, that 
if the water within the Mediterranean be heavier than the wa- 
ter in the Atlantic, the water of the latter, according to the laws 
of gravity and fluids, must of course run in above, and at the 
same rate the water of the Mediterranean, being heaviest, run 
out below ; and in this particular case, as the cause must be per- 
petual, the effect must follow ; and the upper or surface-current 
never cease to run in from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. 
In order to ascertain the fact, whether the water in the Me- 
diterranean is actually heavier than the water in the Atlantic, 
Lieutenant Patton filled some bottles of sea-water, at a distance 
from all land, in the Atlantic, and also some bottles near the 
middle of the Mediterranean, which were afterwards carefully 
and accurately weighed ; when a flask, containing one pound 
six ounces and five drachms of the Atlantic water was found to 
be thirteen grains lighter than the same flask, most exactly filled 
with an equal quantity of the Mediterranean water. 
The difference of weight seems small in the contents of a 
flask, but, on so large a body of water as the Gut of Gibraltar 
must contain, is quite sufficient to account for the constant cur- 
rent which, from this cause, as Lieutenant Patton has fully as- 
certained, runs from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean.” 
A submarine current, similar to that of the Straits of Gib- 
raltar, has been observed by the present Captain Patton, P. N. 
The ship which he commanded having had occasion to anchor 
some miles from Elsinore, he found a current running from the 
Baltic, at the rate of Jour miles an hour by the log. Upon 
dropping the lead, in order to ascertain the depth of water, 
which was about fourteen fathoms, he found the line continue 
perpendicular from his hand, when the lead itself was raised a 
little from the ground. Hence he concluded, that an under-cur- 
rent, equally rapid with that on the surface, had prevented the 
lead and line from yielding to the opposite motion of the fluid, 
as it would have done had the ship been sailing at that rate 
through the water. The Baltic consists of brackish water, and 
the currents in the Sound frequently change by the influence of 
the winds. 
