which occasionally occur in England. 323 



stream in the present year, similar to that which took place 

 in 1821. To this it must be replied, that strange as it may- 

 appear, this remarkable phaenomenon may take place in any 

 year without our having other knowledge of it than by its 

 effects, although it occurs at so short a distance from our ports, 

 from whence so many hundred vessels are continually crossing 

 and recrossing the part of the ocean where a few simple ob- 

 servations with a thermometer would serve to make it known. 

 We have no organized means of learning an occurrence which, 

 whether it be or be not the cause of the present extremely 

 mild winter, cannot fail whenever it does occur to affect ma- 

 terially and for a considerable length of time the climate of an 

 extensive district of the globe including our own islands. 

 History-has recorded two instances in which the extension of 

 the Gulf-stream is known to have taken place ; and in both we 

 owe our knowledge of it to the casual observations of an acci- 

 dental voyager. Some one there may be in the present winter 

 whose curiosity may have induced him, in the well-frequented 

 passage between England and Madeira, to dip a thermometer 

 in the sea once or twice a day, and who may therefore, perhaps 

 unconsciously, be in possession of the very facts which it is 

 desirable to know ; in such case this communication, should it 

 meet his eye, may be the means of inducing their publica- 

 tion. It is desirable however that we should not be thus 

 altogether dependent on accident for information w 7 hich may 

 have even greater practical than scientific value ; happily it is 

 well known that suggestions of this nature, when really de- 

 serving attention, do not pass unheeded by our excellent Hy- 

 drographer, to whose department such subjects seem naturally 

 to belong*. 



But not only might we by such means be occasionally in- 

 formed in November or December that we had probably to 

 expect a continuance of very mild weather through January 

 and February; it is not unreasonable to suppose that such 

 winters might well be anticipated at a still earlier period of 

 the year ; ships sail faster than the Gulf-stream flows, and a 

 more than usual difference existing in the levels of the Gulf 

 of Mexico and the Atlantic, or a more than usual initial ve- 

 locity of the stream itself, with the consequent probability of 

 a winter of unusual mildness in Europe, might be known in 

 England in the summer or in the early autumn ; or even going 



* It is much to be wished that a society existed in England which should 

 charge itself with the many interesting and important considerations be- 

 longing to physical geography. Did the object and scope of the Royal 

 Geographical Society embrace physical as well as descriptive geography, it 

 cannot be doubted that science and the public would be greatly benefited. 



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