Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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There, A Zone Of 140 Leagues In Breadth
Separates The Equinoctial Current (The Tendency Of Which Is Towards
The West) From That Great Mass Of Water Which Runs Eastward, And Is
Distinguished For Its Extraordinary High Temperature.
To this mass
of waters, known by the name of the Gulf-stream,* (* Sir Francis
Drake observed this extraordinary movement of the waters, but he
was unacquainted with their high temperature.) the attention of
naturalists was directed in 1776 by the curious observations of
Franklin and Sir Charles Blagden.
The equinoctial current drives the waters of the Atlantic towards
the coasts inhabited by the Mosquito Indians, and towards the
shores of Honduras. The New Continent, stretching from south to
north, forms a sort of dyke to this current. The waters are carried
at first north-west, and passing into the Gulf of Mexico through
the strait formed by Cape Catoche and Cape St. Antonio, follow the
bendings of the Mexican coast, from Vera Cruz to the mouth of the
Rio del Norte, and thence to the mouths of the Mississippi, and the
shoals west of the southern extremity of Florida. Having made this
vast circuit west, north, east, and south, the current takes a new
direction northward, and throws itself with impetuosity into the
Gulf of Florida. At the end of the Gulf of Florida, in the parallel
of Cape Cannaveral, the Gulf-stream, or current of Florida, runs
north-east. Its rapidity resembles that of a torrent, and is
sometimes five miles an hour.
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