nswer 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.

10. Furthermore, the current in the great ocean could not have been
maintained to run continually one way from the beginning of the world
unto this day, had there not been some through passage by the strait
aforesaid, and so by circular motion be brought again to maintain itself,
for the tides and courses of the sea are maintained by their
interchangeable motions, as fresh rivers are by springs, by ebbing and
flowing, by rarefaction and condensation.

So that it resteth not possible (so far as my simple reason can
comprehend) that this perpetual current can by any means be maintained,
but only by a continual reaccess of the same water, which passeth through
the strait, and is brought about thither again by such circular motion as
aforesaid, and the certain falling thereof by this strait into Mare del
Sur is proved by the testimony and experience of Barnarde de la Torre,
who was sent from P. de la Natividad to the Moluccas, 1542, by
commandment of Anthony Mendoza, then Viceroy of Nova Hispania, which
Barnarde sailed 750 leagues on the north side of the Equator, and there
met with a current which came from the north-east, the which drove him
back again to Tidore.