310 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAI??. 



ing: of snow and ice, wliich play .sueli a part in tliis region, are not 

 abnornial, but according,- to hiw. 



This law Las been known only of late years. Even so ingenious an 

 inquirer as Captain (Jook noticed the mildness of the climate without 

 attempting to account for it. He records that, in his opinion, " cattle 

 might exist in Ounalaska all the year round without being housed" 

 ("Voyages," vol. ii, ]>. 520); and this was in latitude 53° 52', on the 

 same ])arallel with Labrador, and several degrees north of Quebec; but 

 he stops with a sim])le statement of the suggestive fact. This, how- 

 ever, was inconsistent with tlie received idea at the time. 



A geographer, who wrote just before Cook sailed, has a chapter to 

 show that the climate of Quel)ec continues across the continent, and, 

 by a natural conse(]ueiu'e, that America is colder than Asia. 1 refer to 

 the "Memoires Gcographiques" of Engel ([). 19G). He would have been 

 astonished had he seen the revelations of an isothermal map, showing 

 that i)recisely the reverse is true; that the climate of Quebec does not 

 continue across the continent; that the Pacific coast of our continent 

 is warmer than the corresi)onding Atlantic coast, and that America 

 is warmer than Asia, so far at least as can be determined V)y the two 

 o])i)Osite coasts. Such is the unquestionable truth, of which there are 

 I)leiitiful signs. The flora on the American side, even in Behring 

 Straits, is more vigorous than that on the Asiatic side; the American 

 mountains have less snow than their Asiatic neighbours. 



Among many illustrations of the temperature 1 know none more 

 direct than that furnished by the late Honourable William Sturgis, of 

 Boston, who was familiar with the north-west coast at the beginning of 

 the century, in a lecture on the Oregon question in 1845. After 

 remarking that the climate there is "altogether milder, and the winter 

 less severe, than in corresponding latitudes on this side of the conti- 

 nent," he proceeds to testify that, "as a proof of its mildness, he had 

 passed seven winters between the latitudes of 51° and 57°, frequently 

 lying so near the shore as to Imve a small cable fast to the trees, and 

 only once was his shi]) surroumlcd by ice sufliciently firm to bear the 

 weight of a man." But this intelligent navigator assigns no reason. 

 To the common observer it seemed as if the temperature grew milder, 

 travelling with the sun until it dipi)ed in the ocean. 



Among the authorities open before me 1 quote two, which show that 

 this ditference of temperature between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts 

 was imagined, if not actually recognized, during the last century. Port- 

 lock, the Englishman, who was on this coast in 1787, after saying that 

 during stormy and unsettled weather the air had been mild ami tem- 

 ])erate, remarks that he is " inclined to think that the climate here is 

 not so severe as has been generally supposed." ("Voyage," p. 188.) 

 La P<''rouse, the Fienchman, who was here the same year, and had been 

 before in Hudson Bay, on the other side of the continent, says still 

 more explicitly that "the climate of this coast appeared to him infi- 

 nitely milder than that of Hudson Bay in the same latitude, and that 

 the ])ines which he had measured here were much larger." ("Voyage," 

 vol. ii, p. 187.) Langsdorf, when at Sitka in ]8(l(), records that Mr. 

 John 1 ). Woltf, a citizen of the United States, who had passed the winter 

 at the Settlenu'nt, "is nnich suri)rised at finding the cold less severe 

 than at Boston, lihode Island, and other ])rovinces of the United States 

 which lie more to the s(mth." (" Voyages," vol. ii, p. 101.) 



All this is now ex])lained by certain known forces in Nature. Of 



these, the most im])ortant is a thermal current in the ]*acific, 



70 corresponding to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. The latter, 



