X.] THE GULF STREAM. 161 



equilibrium in the temperature of fluids, — a vast body of 

 gelid water is continually mounting from the Antarctic, to 

 displace and regenerate the over-heated oceans of the 

 torrid zone. Bounding up against the west side of South 

 America, the ascending stream skirts the coasts of Chili and 

 Peru, and is then deflected in a westerly direction across the 

 Pacific Ocean, where it takes the name of the Equatorial 

 Current. Having completely encircled Australia, it enters 

 the Indian Sea, sweeps up round the Cape of Good Hope, and, 

 crossing the Atlantic, twists into the Gulf of Mexico. Here 

 its flagging energies are suddenly accelerated in consequence 

 of the narrow limits within which it finds itself compressed. 

 So marvellous does the velocity of the current now become, 

 so complete its isolation from the deep sea bed it traverses, 

 that by the time it issues again into the Atlantic, its hitherto 

 diffused and loitering waters are suddenly concentrated into 

 what Lieutenant Maury has happily called — " a river in the 

 ocean," swifter and of greater volume than either the 

 Mississippi or the Amazon. Surging forth between the 

 interstices of the Bahamas, that stretch like a weir across its 

 mouth, it cleaves asunder the Atlantic. So distinct is its 

 individuality, that one side of a vessel will be scoured by its 

 warm indigo-coloured water, while the other is floating in 

 the pale, stagnant, weed-encumbered brine of the Mar de 

 Sargasso of the Spaniards. It is not only by colour, by its 

 temperature, by its motion, that this "poi) 'flfceavoco" is dis- 

 tinguished ; its very surface is arched upwards some way 

 above the ordinary sea-level toward the centre, by the 

 lateral pressure of the elastic liquid banks between which 

 it flows. Impregnated with the warmth of tropic climes, 

 the Gulf Stream — as it has now come to be called,; — then 

 pours its genial floods across the North Atlantic, laving 

 the western coasts of Britain, Ireland, and Norway, and 

 investing each shore it strikes upon, with a climate far 

 milder than that enjoyed by other lands situated in the 

 same latitudes. Arrived abreast of the North Cape, the 

 impetus of the current is in a great measure exhausted. 



ii 



