Gulf Stream and Currents of the Sea. 161 



A 



Remarks on the Gulf Stream and Currents of the 

 Sea; by Lieut. M. F. Maury, U. S. N.* 



[Lieut. Maury introduces his paper by stating that he has no 

 intention of recapitulating the little that we know with regard to 

 the Gulf Stream, and of its currents; sometimes conflicting 

 sometimes colder and at other times warmer than the seas in 

 which they are found. 



That we should obtain a better knowledge of these currents 

 and of the laws that govern them, is equally interesting to the 

 navigator and to the philanthropist, and it is therefore recommen- 

 ded to the National Institute, " to devise and set on foot a plan 

 w multiplying observations and extending our information upon 

 these interesting phenomena."— Eds.] 



The shoals which endanger navigation off the capes of Car- 

 olina, appear to owe their existence entirely to currents. The 

 soundings and form of the Hatteras and other shoals, clearly in- 

 •cate that they are caused by a current from the north. A com- 

 parison of present charts with Jeffry's Atlas published in 1775, 



ows not only that these shoals are increasing, but that the chain. 



islands alluded to is in process of gradual formation. Curri- 

 c * and Roanoke Inlets which are now sand bars, were once 

 av igable; Ocrocoke Inlet had then seventeen feet of water ; it 

 °w has eight. Besides these, there were, between Beaufort, N. 

 ar °nna and Charleston S. Carolina, twenty five or thirty others, 

 an y of them then navigable, and most of them now closed and 

 faring only as dry land. 



» hence comes the sand that forms these islands ? Separated 

 j°m , tne Main land by standing pools of water, moved only by 

 h tldes from the ocean, it cannot be brought from the shore. 

 can only be upheaved by geological agencies, with the general 

 Nation of the coast, or it is cast up from the bottom of the 

 e an by the Gulf Stream and the waves, or brought down from 



north by the current on the coast. Investigation might set- 

 question. If marine currents considered as physical agents, 



'nteresting to the geologist, they are far more so to the navi- 

 or i but their force, their fluctuations and their general laws 



It 



x 



2^ ]^ rIensed frorn a paper read before the National Institute, Tuesday, April 

 VoL ***, No. l.-April-June, 1844. 21 



