Note 40 — Chapter II
Reading edition
“Sargossa Sea.” The name given to that part of the Atlantic Ocean lying between 25° and 36° north latitude, and west of the Azore islands, which is covered by a kind of seaweed distributed in great masses by the Gulf Stream. Humboldt speaks of it as “that great bank of weeds which so vividly occupied the imagination of Christopher Columbus, and which Oviedo calls the seaweed meadows.” On his first voyage Columbus passed through this sea, which caused great alarm to his companions, who thought there must be rocks or shoals near. The quantity of the weed is such as often to impede the progress of vessels.