56 



THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



perature of the Gulf Stream and of the neighboring regions, both 

 in the air and water. 



70. The habitual dampness of the climate of the British Islands, 

 as well as the occasional dampness of that along the Atlantic 

 coasts of the United States when easterly winds prevail, is attrib- 

 utable also to the Gulf Stream. They come to us loaded with 

 vapors gathered from its warm and smoking waters. 



It carries the temperature of summer, even in the dead of win- 

 ter, as far north as the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. 



71. One of the poles of maximum cold is, according to theory, 

 situated in latitude 80° north, longitude 100° west. It is distant 

 but little more than two thousand miles, in a northwestwardly 

 direction, from the summer-heated waters of this stream. This 

 proximity of extremes of greatest cold and summer heat, will, as 

 observations are multiplied and discussed, be probably found to 

 have much to do with the storms that rage with such fury on the 

 left side of the Gulf Stream. 



72. I am not prepared to maintain that the Gulf Stream is 

 really the " Storm King" of the Atlantic, which has power to con- 

 trol the march of every gale that is raised there ; but the course 

 of many gales has been traced from the place of their origin di- 

 rectly to the Gulf Stream. Gales that take their rise on the coast 

 of Africa, and even as far down on that side as the parallel of 10° 

 or 15° north latitude, have, it has been shown by an examination 

 of log-books, made straight for the Gulf Stream ; joining it, they 

 have then been known to turn about, and, traveling with this 

 stream, to recross the Atlantic, and so reach the shores of Eu- 

 rope. In this w^ay the tracks of storms have been traced out and 

 followed for a week or ten days. Their path is marked by wreck 

 and disaster. At the meeting of the American Association for 

 the advancement of Science in 1854, Mr. Redfield mentioned one 

 which he had traced out, and in which no less than seventy odd 

 vessels had been wrecked, dismasted, or damaged. 



Plate X. was prepared by Lieutenant B. S. Porter, from data 

 furnished by the log-books at the Observatory. It represents one 

 of these storms that commenced in August, 1848. It commenced 

 more than a thousand miles from the Gulf Stream, made a straight 

 course for it, and traveled with it for many days. 



The dark shading shows the space covered by the gale, and 



