OCEANIC CIRCULATION 125 



North American coast. Between the North 

 and South Equatorial Currents there is a 

 Counter Equatorial Current flowing eastwards 

 into the Gulf of Guinea. The flow of water 

 into the Caribbean Sea from the two equa- 

 torial currents and thence into the Gulf of 

 Mexico raises the level of the water in that 

 Gulf considerably above the level of the open 

 ocean, and the water issues through the Strait 

 of Florida as a warm saline current, known 

 as the Gulf Stream. It is joined by the waters 

 skirting the West Indies and flows along the 

 United States coast, always growing wider, 

 shallower, cooler and less saline, until about 

 the latitude of Cape Hatteras it curves in a 

 north-easterly direction, and after encounter- 

 ing the cold Labrador Current from the north 

 in the vicinity of the Newfoundland Banks, 

 crosses the Atlantic, merging gradually into 

 the North Atlantic Drift. On approaching 

 the coasts of Europe this surface drift is 

 divided, one branch owing to the pull of the 

 winds around the North Atlantic anticyclonic 

 area flowing in a south-easterly and then 

 southerly direction as the Canaries Current, 

 thus completing the North Atlantic " water- 

 whirl," the other branch continuing in a north- 

 easterly direction past the British Isles, 

 across the Wyville Thomson Ridge, and along 

 the coast of Norway. Cold Arctic currents flow 



