The stream becomes wider as it extends north, diminishes its velocity, and gradually changes its temperature, until it strikes the shoals south of Nantucket and the Bank of St.George, when it branches off to the eastward, washes the southern edge of the Bank of Newfoundland, and a portion of it is lost in the ocean between the Western and Canary Islands; and another portion, sweeping to the southward past the Cape de Verdes, is again impelled to the westward across the Atlantic, and performs its regular round.
The current always moving in the same circuitous track, forms, according to Mr.Maury, to whose scientific labors the commercial world is deeply indebted, an IMMENSE WHIRLPOOL, whose circuit embraces the whole North Atlantic Ocean.

In the centre of the whirl is a quiet spot, equal in extent of area to the whole Mississippi valley, unaffected by currents of any kind.

And here, as a matter of course, the greater part of the gulf-weed and other floating materials, which are carried round by the current, is eventually deposited.

This is the "Sargasso Sea" of the ancients.

Columbus crossed this "weedy sea" on his quest after a western passage to India.