Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[552] the steam by reefed trysails, we battled with an adverse sea and current during the rest of the night. We found the current setting into the passage, to be as much as two and a half knots per hour, which was greater than I had ever known it before.

I may take this occasion to remind the reader, that the old theory of Dr. Franklin and others, was, that the Gulf Stream, which flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, between the north coast of Cuba, and the Florida Reefs and Keys, flows into the Gulf, through the channel between the west end of Cuba, and the coast of Yucatan, in which the Alabama now was. But the effectual disproof of this theory is, that we know positively, from the strength of the current, and its volume, or cross section, in the two passages, that more than twice the quantity of water flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, than flows into it through this passage. Upon Dr. Franklin's theory, the Gulf of Mexico in a very short time would become dry ground. Nor can the Mississippi River, which is the only stream worth noticing, in this connection, that flows into the Gulf of Mexico, come to his relief, as we have seen that that river only empties into the Gulf of Mexico, about one three thousandth part as much water, as the Gulf Stream takes out. We must resort, of necessity, to an under-current from the north, passing into the Gulf of Mexico, under the Gulf Stream, rising to the surface when heated, and thus swelling the volume of the outflowing water. I refer my readers, curious in this matter, to the work of Captain Maury, entitled the ‘Physical Geography of the Sea.’ It is full of profound philosophy, on the subjects of which it treats, and is written in so pleasing a style, and is so strewn with flowers, as to make the reader forget that he is travelling the thorny paths of science.

The 18th of January was Sunday, and we were obliged to intermit the usual Sunday muster, on account the of bad weather, which continued without intermission—the wind still blowing a gale, and the passing clouds deluging us with rain. Two days afterward, viz., on the 20th, we made the west end of the island of Jamaica, a little after midnight, and as we crawled under the lee of the coast, we broke, for the first time, the force of the wind with which we had been so long struggling.