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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Considering The Velocity Of The Molecules, Which, On Account Of The
Rotatory Motion Of The Globe, Vary With The Parallels,
We may be
tempted to admit that every current, in the direction from south to
north, tends at the same
Time eastward, while the waters which run
from the pole towards the equator, have a tendency to deviate
westward. We may also be led to think that these tendencies
diminish to a certain point the speed of the tropical current, in
the same manner as they change the direction of the polar current,
which in July and August, is regularly perceived during the melting
of the ice, on the parallel of the bank of Newfoundland, and
farther north. Very old nautical observations, which I have had
occasion to confirm by comparing the longitude given by the
chronometer with that which the pilots obtained by their reckoning,
are, however, contrary to these theoretical ideas. In both
hemispheres, the polar currents, when they are perceived, decline a
little to the east; and it would seem that the cause of this
phenomenon should be sought in the constancy of the westerly winds
which prevail in the high latitudes. Besides, the particles of
water do not move with the same rapidity as the particles of air;
and the currents of the ocean, which we consider as most rapid,
have only a swiftness of eight or nine feet a second; it is
consequently very probable, that the water, in passing through
different parallels, gradually acquires a velocity correspondent to
those parallels, and that the rotation of the earth does not change
the direction of the currents.
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