Читать книгу Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study of Medieval Geography онлайн

39 страница из 41

Through the dynamical forces arising from the earth’s rotation which cause moving masses in the northern hemisphere to be deflected toward the right-hand side of their path, the algae that are borne by the Gulf Stream from the tropical seas find their way toward the inner edge of the circulatory drift which moves in a clockwise direction around the central part of the North Atlantic Ocean. In this central part the flow of the surface waters is not steady in any direction, and hence the floating seaweed tends to accumulate there. This accumulation is perhaps most observable in the triangular region marked out by the Azores, the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands, but much seaweed is also found to the westward of the middle part of this region in an elongated area extending to the 70th meridian.

The abundance of seaweed in the Sargasso Sea fluctuates much with the variation of the agencies which account for its presence, but this Office does not possess any authentic records to show that it has ever materially impeded vessels.43