There can be no doubt that this current of the Gulf Stream is owing to the trade winds in the tropical seas, which, blowing at all times from the eastward, drive a large body of water towards the American continent.

Vessels bound to India invariably meet with a strong westerly current within the tropics, and particularly in the vicinity of the equator.

This volume of water is thus forced along the shores of Brazil and Guiana, until it enters the Caribbean Sea, from which it has no outlet excepting through 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.