218 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Near its origin the Kuro-Siwo, like the Gulf Stream, is contracted, and is 

 usually confined between Formosa and the Majico-Sima Islands, with a width 

 of 100 miles. But to the northward of this group it rapidly expands on its 

 southern limit, and reaches the Lew-Chew and Bonin Islands, .giving it a 

 width to the northward of the latter of about 500 miles. 



To the eastward of the meridian of 143 east, in latitude 40 north, the 

 stream takes a more easterly direction, allowing a cold current to intervene 

 between it and the southern coast of Yesse, where the thermal change in 

 the water is from 16 to 20 ; but from the harassing prevalence of fogs during 

 our limited stay in that vicinity, it was impossible to make such observations 

 or experiments as to prove conclusively the predominant direction of this cold 

 current through the Straits of Sangar, particularly as the tide ebbs and flows 

 through them with great rapidity. Yet, from what we have, I am inclined 

 to believe that it is a current from the Arctic ocean running counter to the 

 Kuro-Siwo, and which passes to the westward through the Straits of Sangar, 

 down through the Japan Sea, between Corea and the Japanese Islands, and 

 feeds the hyperborean current on the east coast of China, which flows to the 

 southward through the Formosa Channel into the China Sea. For to the 

 westward of a line connecting the north end of Formosa and the south-western 

 extremity of Japan there is no flow of tropical waters to the northward, but, 

 on the contrary, a cold counter current filling the space between the Kuro- 

 Siwo and the coast of China, as is distinctly shown by our observations. As 

 far as this cold water extends off the coast, the soundings are regular and 

 increase gradually in depth, but simultaneously with the increase of tempera- 

 ture in the water the plummet falls into a trough similar to the bed of the 

 Gulf Stream, as ascertained by the United States Coast Survey. 



The influence of the Kuro-Siwo upon the climate of Japan and the west coast 

 of North America, is, as might be expected, as striking as that of the Gulf 

 Stream on the coasts bordering the North Atlantic. From the insular posi- 

 tion of Japan, with the intervening sea between it and the continent of Asia^ 

 it has a more equable climate than we enjoy in the United States; and 

 since the counter current of the Kuro-Siwo does not make its appearance on 

 the eastern shores of the islands, south of the Straits of Sangar, and as these 

 islands, in their geographical position, have a more eastwardly direction than 

 our coast, the Kuro-Siwo, unlike the Gulf Stream, sweeps close along this 

 shore, giving a milder climate to that portion of the empire than is enjoyed in 

 corresponding latitudes in the United States. 



The softening influence of the Kuro-Siwo is felt on the coasts of Oregon and 

 California, but in a less degree, perhaps, than that of the Gulf Stream on the coasts 

 of Europe, owing to the greater width of the Pacific Ocean over the Atlantic. 

 Still, the winters are so mild in Puget's Sound, in latitude 48 north, that 

 snow rarely falls there, and the inhabitants are never enabled to fill their ice 

 houses for the summer ; and vessels trading to Petropaulowski and the coast 

 of Kamtskatka, when becoming unwieldy from accumulation of ice on their 

 hulls and rigging, run over to a higher latitude on the American coast and 

 thaw out, in the same manner that vessels frozen up on our own coast, retreat 

 again into the Gulf Stream, until favored by an easterly wind. 



