Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 33 of 407 - First - Home
We Shall Give But A Very Succinct Account Of
The Arm Of The Gulf-Stream, Which In The 45th And 50th Degrees Of
Latitude, Near The Bank Called The Bonnet Flamand, Runs From
South-West To North-East Towards The Coasts Of Europe.
This partial
current becomes very strong at those times when the west winds are
of long continuance:
And, like that which flows along the isles of
Ferro and Gomera, it deposits every year on the western coasts of
Ireland and Norway the fruit of trees which belong to the torrid
zone of America. On the shores of the Hebrides, we collect seeds of
Mimosa scandens, of Dolichos urens, of Guilandina bonduc, and
several other plants of Jamaica, the isle of Cuba, and of the
neighbouring continent. The current carries thither also barrels of
French wine, well preserved, the remains of the cargoes of vessels
wrecked in the West Indian seas. To these examples of the distant
migration of the vegetable world, others no less striking may be
added. The wreck of an English vessel, the Tilbury, burnt near
Jamaica, was found on the coast of Scotland. On these same coasts
are sometimes found various kinds of tortoises, that inhabit the
waters of the Antilles. When the western winds are of long
duration, a current is formed in the high latitudes, which runs
directly towards east-south-east, from the coasts of Greenland and
Labrador, as far as the north of Scotland. Wallace relates, that
twice (in 1682 and 1684), American savages of the race of the
Esquimaux, driven out to sea in their leathern canoes, during a
storm, and left to the guidance of the currents, reached the
Orkneys. This last example is the more worthy of attention, as it
proves at the same time how, at a period when the art of navigation
was yet in its infancy, the motion of the waters of the ocean may
have contributed to disseminate the different races of men over the
face of the globe.
In reflecting on the causes of the Atlantic currents, we find that
they are much more numerous than is generally believed; for the
waters of the sea may be put in motion by an external impulse, by
difference of heat and saltness, by the periodical melting of the
polar ice, or by the inequality of evaporation, in different
latitudes. Sometimes several of these causes concur to one and the
same effect, and sometimes they produce several contrary effects.
Winds that are light, but which, like the trade-winds, are
continually acting on the whole of a zone, cause a real movement of
transition, which we do not observe in the heaviest tempests,
because these last are circumscribed within a small space. When, in
a great mass of water, the particles at the surface acquire a
different specific gravity, a superficial current is formed, which
takes its direction towards the point where the water is coldest,
or where it is most saturated with muriate of soda, sulphate of
lime, and muriate or sulphate of magnesia.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 33 of 407
Words from 16656 to 17165
of 211363