Behavior of the Atlantic : 51 



The volume of water moving in these currents is so great that it is 

 usual to figure the volume of water carried by the current past an 

 imagined line each second. Anyone with zest for nice large figures 

 can translate this into volumes per minute, hour, day or any larger 

 unit curiosity might dictate. Between Miami and the Bahama Bank 

 the current carries 26,000,000 cubic meters of water per second. Should 

 you stand on the levee of the Mississippi River at New Orleans and 

 look across it to the far shore it would seem to you a vast and rapid 

 flow of water. It would take 217 Mississippi Rivers to equal the flow 

 of the Florida current even here at its narrowest point. The current 

 flowing outside the Bahamas, the Bahama or Antilles Current, adds 

 another 12,000,000 cubic meters per second. This great stream seems 

 to drag along with it other masses of water for off Chesapeake Bay 

 the volume transport has been computed as 74,000,000 cubic meters 

 per second and even higher. 



In the center of this great circuit of North Atlantic currents is a 

 quiet current-free area which includes the area known as the Sargasso 

 Sea. We have already spoken of the northward extensions of the North 

 Atlantic Current (European part of the Gulf Stream system) when 

 we were tracing the voyages of the Central American driftwood. 



With so much warm water moving northward one might expect 

 that there should be some exchange or balance — some cold water 

 moving south — and there is. On both sides of Greenland there are 

 southward flowing currents of cold water coming out of the Arctic 

 Mediterranean. The East Greenland Current runs rapidly and car- 

 ries along with it masses of pack ice and icebergs. One branch of 

 this current continues south beyond Cape Farewell with its danger- 

 ous load. The other branch hugs the cape and having bent around it 

 starts flowing northeast as the West Greenland Current. Before reach- 

 ing Davis Straits it turns west and joins another southbound current 

 to continue as the Labrador Current. The Labrador Current contin- 

 ues south across the Banks; around Newfoundland and ever on along 

 all the Atlantic coast, running between the coast and the Gulf 

 Stream. Of course as it progresses it warms up gradually and loses 

 some of its speed and power but lingering traces have been detected 

 along the shore as far south as Georgia. 



We have been speaking of the surface currents of the North Atlan- 

 tic and here warm, northward flowing currents seem to predominate 

 over one important southbound cold Labrador Current; but we should 

 remember that lighter, warmer waters will ride on the surface and 

 that denser and colder waters tend to sink and to form the intermedi- 



