torms, but by winds having a constant and regular direction; as the
"trades" in the Atlantic and Pacific, the "monsoons" in the Indian
Ocean, the "pamperos" of South America, and the "northers" of the
Mexican Gulf.

There is another cause for these currents, perhaps of more powerful
influence than the winds, yet less taken into account. It is the
_spinning_ of the earth on its axis. Undoubtedly are the "trades"
indebted to this for their direction towards the west,--the simple
centrifugal tendency of the atmosphere. Otherwise, would these winds
blow due northward and southward, coming into collision on the line of
the equator.

But it is not my purpose to attempt a dissertation either on winds or
oceanic streams. I am not learned enough for this, though enough to
know that great misconception prevails on this subject, as well as upon
that of the _tides_; and that meteorologists have not given due credit
to the revolving motion of our planet, which is in truth the principal
producer of these phenomena.

Why I have introduced the subject at all is, not because our little book
is peculiarly a book of the ocean, but, because that ocean currents have
much to do with "Ocean Waifs," and that these last afford the true
explanation of the phenomenon first-mentioned,--the fact that some parts
of the ocean teem with animal life, while others are as dead as a
desert. The currents account for it, thus:--where two of them meet,--as
is often the case,--vast quantities of material substances, both
vegetable and animal, are drifted together; where they are held, to a
certain extent, stationary; or circling around in great _ocean eddies_.
The wrack of sea-weed,--waifs from the distant shores,--birds that have
fallen lifeless into the ocean, or drop their excrement to float on its
surface,--fish that have died of disease, violence, or naturally,--for
the finny tribes are not exempt from the natural laws of decay and
death,--all these organisms, drifted by the currents, meet upon the
neutral "ground,"--there to float about, and furnish food to myriads of
living creatures,--many species of which are, to all appearance, scarce
organised more highly than the decomposed matters that appear first to
give them life, and afterwards sustain their existence.

In such tracts of the ocean are found the lower marine animals, in
incalculable numbers; the floating shell-fish, as _Janthina_, _Hyalaea_
and _Cleodora_; the sea-lizards, as _Velella