The Like Course Of The Water, In Some Respect, Happeneth In The
Mediterranean Sea (As Affirmeth Contorenus), Where, As The
Current
which cometh from Tanais and the Euxine, running along all the
coasts of Greece, Italy, France, and Spain, and
Not finding
sufficient way out through Gibraltar by means of the straitness of
the frith, it runneth back again along the coasts of Barbary by
Alexandria, Natolia, etc.
It may, peradventure, be thought that this course of the sea doth
sometime surcease and thereby impugn this principle, because it is
not discerned all along the coast of America in such sort as Jacques
Cartier found it, whereunto I answer this: That albeit in every
part of the coast of America or elsewhere this current is not
sensibly perceived, yet it hath evermore such like motion, either
the uppermost or nethermost part of the sea; as it may be proved
true, if you sink a sail by a couple of ropes near the ground,
fastening to the nethermost corners two gun chambers or other
weights, by the driving whereof you shall plainly perceive the
course of the water and current running with such like course in the
bottom. By the like experiment you may find the ordinary motion of
the sea in the ocean, how far soever you be off the land.
9. Also, there cometh another current from out the north-east from
the Scythian Sea (as Master Jenkinson, a man of rare virtue, great
travel, and experience, told me), which runneth westward towards
Labrador, as the other did which cometh from the south; so that both
these currents must have way through this our strait, or else
encounter together and run contrary courses in one line, but no such
conflicts of streams or contrary courses are found about any part of
Labrador or Newfoundland, as witness our yearly fishers and other
sailors that way, but is there separated as aforesaid, and found by
the experience of Barnarde de la Torre to fall into Mare del Sur.
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