Note 4 — Chapter I · VOYAGE FROM NEW YORK TO RIO DE JANEIRO.

“This stream,” he writes, “is probably generated by the great accumulation of water on the eastern coast of America, between the tropics, by the trade-winds which constantly blow there.” These views, though vaguely hinted at by old Spanish navigators, were first distinctly set forth by Franklin, and, as is stated in a recent printed report of the Coast Survey Explorations, “they receive confirmation from every discovery which the advance of scientific research brings to aid in the solution of the great problem of oceanic circulation.”