The Northeast trades have been blowing for uncounted centuries,
pushing water southwestwardly toward the equator. The Southeast
trades blow just as industriously and they too, push water toward the
equator from the southeast. It is quite obvious that this could go on only
a short time, for soon there would be a great mountain of water at the
equator.

The water must go some place. Men found that the water set in
motion by the Northeast trades flowed westwardly just above the
equator so they named it the North Equatorial Current. The waters set in
motion by the Southeast trades, when they meet the North Equatorial
Current, also turn and flow to the west. This body of moving water has
been called the South Equatorial Current.

These two currents flow westward along the equator in one
gigantic stream. At last they come upon the coast of South America at a
point where the equator cuts across the mouth of the Amazon River on
the northern coast of Brazil.

Cape St. Roque, jutting into the ocean about 5° south of the
equator, splits the waters of the South Equatorial Current. A part of this
current flows northwestwardly along the coast of Brazil, passes the
Guianas and Trinidad, and thus, through the Lesser Antilles into the
Caribbean Sea.

The North Equatorial Current is likewise disrupted. The South
Equatorial Current shoulders it away from land; the trade winds con-