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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We Now Know That In The Torrid Zone The
Trade-Winds And The Current Of The Tropics Are In Opposition
To
every motion of the waves in the direction of the earth's rotation.
The productions of the new world cannot
Reach the old but by the
very high latitudes, and in following the direction of the current
of Florida. The fruits of several trees of the Antilles are often
washed ashore on the coasts of the islands of Ferro and Gomera.
Before the discovery of America, the Canarians considered these
fruits as coming from the enchanted isle of St. Borondon, which
according to the reveries of pilots, and certain legends, was
situated towards the west in an unknown part of the ocean, buried,
as was supposed, in eternal mists.
My chief view in tracing a sketch of the currents of the Atlantic
is to prove that the motion of the waters towards the south-east,
from Cape St. Vincent to the Canary Islands, is the effect of the
general motion to which the surface of the ocean is subjected at
its western extremity. 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.
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