Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1889 — The Course of Atlantic Currents. [ARTICLE]

The Course of Atlantic Currents.

At the last session of the Paris Academy of Sciences, early in the present month, Prince Albert of Monaco presented to the Academicians a great map upon which he has summed up the results of his researches during the last three years on the direction of surface ■ currents in the Atlantic Ocean. The prince who is very fond of science, has had no less than 1,675 “floaters,” generally sealed bottles containing letters of instruction, set afloat at different points on the European and American coasts, and up to date 146 of them have reappeared along the coast of Norway, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, the Azores, Madeira, Canaries, the Antilles, in mid-ocean, and also in the Mediterranean. An attentive examination of their points of departure aud arrival has enabled the mapping out, approximately, of the courses which these rescued floaters had taken. The work on the chart presented by the prince' demonstrates the circular movement from left to right of the surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean around a point situated somewhere to the southwest of the Azores. The extended circle or band of this vast whirlpool projects toward the northeast a branch which is detached just off the entrance to thq. English Channel, and bathos the coasts of Ireland, Scotland and Norway. Off the Straits of Gibraltar the current appears to yield accidentally to the powerful sweep of the western winds—for only a single floater has been found ’ in' the Mediterranea n. After sweeping entirely around the Canaries, the current travels toward the west, to mingle a little later with the equatorial current, and flows beside the Little Antilles until it effeets. its junction with the Gulf Stream. All countries bordering on the Atlanjfcic have furnishod some information to the prince’s chart. He now proposes, | with the aid of the hydrographic department of the French navy, to con- ; tinue his useful work, and solicits a continuation of the thoughtful co-opera-tion of all navigators and naval administrations.—Boston Journal.