10 CUBA AND POBTO RICO 



the main stream is joined by an affluent setting from the 

 Atlantic through the Windward Channel. Hence north- 

 westward an enormous liquid mass passes at a velocity of 

 from two to three miles through the Strait of Yucatan, 

 from the Caribbean Sea, into the Gulf of Mexico. On 

 entering the Gulf this stream ramifies into two branches ; 

 one, following the north coast of Cuba, sets toward Florida 

 Strait, while the other broadens out in the spacious central 

 basin of the Gulf and develops an intricate system of 

 counter-currents. Toward the center of this nearly cir- 

 cular sea the waters seem to be in a state of equilibrium, 

 while at the periphery they move parallel with, but at 

 some distance from, the surrounding coasts. South of 

 the Mississippi delta the turbid fluid of that great river is 

 impelled eastward in a straight line by the blue waters of 

 the Gulf Stream, until a junction is effected of the southern 

 branches at the western entrance of Florida Strait, through 

 which the whole mass rushes like a mighty river into the 

 broad Atlantic. At the most narrow part, between Jupiter 

 Inlet, on the Florida side, and Memory Rock, in the Baha- 

 mas, the stream contracts to a width of fifty-six miles, 

 with an extreme depth of four hundred and fifty fathoms. 

 In this limited channel the velocity varies from two to six 

 miles, the average being about three, and the discharge, 

 according to Bartlett, 175,000,000,000 of cubic feet per sec- 

 ond, or 15,260,000,000,000,000 per day. Such proportions 

 are difficult to grasp, for they represent a moving mass 

 equal to about three hundred thousand Mississippi rivers. 

 Yet they are still far inferior to the prodigious volume of 

 relatively tepid water spread over the surface of the North 

 Atlantic and Arctic oceans. In fact, the Gulf Stream, 

 issuing from Florida Strait, supplies only a small portion 

 of those tepid waters whose influence is felt as far east as 

 Nova Zembla. The main supply comes from that portion 

 of the equatorial current which is deflected north by the 

 barrier of the West India Islands and is joined by the 

 Gulf Stream south of the Bermudas. 



