the strait bounded by Cape Catouche in
Yucatan, on one side, and Cape St. Antonio, in Cuba, on the other.

Through this strait, after a strong trade wind has been blowing for a
time, the current sets into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of two or
three knots an hour. Here the waters of the tropical seas are mingled
with the waters of the Mississippi, the Balize, the Rio Grande, the
Colorado, the Alabama, and other large streams which empty into the Gulf
of Mexico; and turning off to the eastward, this body of water is driven
along between the coasts of Cuba and Florida until it strikes the Salt
Key Bank and the Bahamas, when it receives another considerable addition
from the currents, which, from the same causes, are continually setting
west through the Old Bahama and New Providence Channels. It is then
forced northward along the coast of Florida and the Middle States. The
stream becomes wider as it extends north, diminishes its velocity, and
gradually changes its temperature, until it strikes the shoals south
of Nantucket and the Bank of St. George, when it branches off to the
eastward, washes the southern edge of the Bank of Newfoundland, and
a portion of it is lost in the ocean between the Western and Canary
Islands; and another portion, sweeping to the southward past the Cape
de Verdes, is again impelled to the westward across the Atlantic, and
performs its regular round.

The current always moving in the same circuitous track, forms, according
to Mr. Maury, to whose scientific labors the commercial world is deeply
indebted, an IMMENSE WHIRLPOOL, whose circuit embraces the whole North
Atlantic Ocean. In the centre of the whirl is a quiet spot, equal in
extent of area to the whole Mississippi valley, unaffected by currents
of any kind. And here, as a matter of course, the greater part of the
gulf-weed and other floating materials, which are carried round by the
current, is eventually deposited. This is the "Sargasso Sea" of the
ancients. Columbus crossed this "weedy sea" on his quest after a western
passage to India. And the singular appearance of the ocean, thickly
matted over with gulf-weed, caused great alarm among his companions, who
thought they had reached the limits of navigation.

A current of a character similar to the Gulf Stream only not so strong
is experienced along the east coast of Africa, from Mozambique to the
Lagullas Bank, off the Cape of Good Hope. This current is undoubtedly
caused by the trade