n Antonio and
Cape Catoche; here the upper and warmer current, being condensed,
strikes deeper, and forces to the surface the cold water from the
under current, sometimes occasioning a roaring and very peculiar
noise. By this means the Gulf stream is divided, part turning to
the eastward around Cuba and between that island and Florida, and
part turning to the westward, north of the banks of Campeachy, and
striking Padre Island, an island upon the coast of Texas, about
one hundred and forty miles this current strikes, there are very
deep soundings, almost up with the land. South of this point, upon
the beach, are found mahogany and other tropical drift-wood,
brought there from the tropics; while north of it the drift wood
is oak, ash, and cotton-wood, brought from the north by a current
running counter to the Gulf stream, which I will hereafter
describe. From Padre Island the Gulf stream strikes off to the
north-east to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence around the
coast of Florida and through her keys, until it joins the other
branch. Inside the Gulf stream, along the coast of Texas, is the
counter-current before referred to, making down the coast at the
rate of two to three miles per hour, and bringing down the silt
and mud of the Mississippi, Sabine, etc. I have seen the water off
the Island of Galveston the color of chocolate, after a long
norther.

Above the centre of Padre Island the coast of Texas deepens at the
rate of about a fathom to the mile, until at twenty fathoms there
is a coral reef, and on the easterly side of this reef the water
deepens, as by the side of a perpendicular wall, to a very great
depth. This reef marks the boundary of the Gulf stream, and also
the boundary of the terrible tornado. The tornado of the Gulf of
Mexico never passes this barrier, never strikes the land, nor has
it been known within memory of man upon the coast.

It seems to confine itself to the course of the warm water of the
stream, and the great 'Father of the Waters' spreads his
counter-current down the coast of Texas, like a long flowing
garment, fending off the storm and the whirlwind, and thus still
better fitting Texas for the white man and the white man's labor.

With this freedom from violent storms comes the delicious
southerly wind in the summer, which gives health a