The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation — Volume 12: America, Part IHakluyt, Richard
History
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation — Volume 12: America, Part I
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English; Voyages and travels
[Sidenote: Nine houres flood to three houres ebbe.] And some Mariners doe
affirme that they haue diligently obserued, that there runneth in this
place nine houres flood to three ebbe, which may thus come to passe by
force of the sayd current: for whereas the Sea in most places of the world,
doth more or lesse ordinarily ebbe and flow once euery twelue houres with
sixe houres ebbe, and sixe houres flood, so also would it doe there, were
it not for the violence of this hastening current, which forceth the flood
to make appearance to beginne before his ordinary time one houre and a
halfe, and also to continue longer than his naturall course by an other
houre and a halfe, vntill the force of the ebbe be so great that it will no
longer be resisted: according to the saying, Naturam expellas furca licet,
vsque recurret. Although nature and naturall courses be forced and resisted
neuer so much, yet at last they will haue their owne sway againe.
4 [Unnumbered in original--KTH] Moreouer it is not possible that so great
course of floods and current, so high swelling tides with continuance of so
deepe waters, can be digested here without vnburdening themselues into some
open Sea beyond this place, which argueth the more likelihood of the
passage to be hereabouts. Also we suppose these great indrafts doe grow and
are made by the reuerberation and reflection of that same currant, which at
our comming by Ireland, met and crossed vs, of which in the first part of
this discourse I spake, which comming from the bay of Mexico, passing by
and washing the Southwest parts of Ireland, reboundeth ouer to the
Northeast parts of the world, as Norway, Island, &c. where not finding any
passage to an open Sea, but rather being there encreased by a new accesse,
and another current meeting with it from the Scythian Sea, passing the bay
of Saint Nicholas Westward, it doth once againe rebound backe, by the
coastes of Groenland, and from thence vpon Frobishers straights being to
the Southwestwardes of the same.
[Sidenote: The Sea moueth continually from East to West.] 5 And if that
principle of Philosophie be true, that Inferiora corpora reguntur à
superioribus, that is, if inferior bodies be gouerned, ruled, and carried
after the maner and course of the superiors, then the water being an
inferior Element, must needes be gouerned after the superior heauen, and so
follow the course of Primum from East to West.[84]
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