250 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



Antarctic, and it is upon these waters that that sea is to be pene- 

 trated, if ever. The North Pacific, except in the narrow passage 

 between Asia and America, is closed to the escape of these warm 

 waters into the Arctic Ocean. The only outlet for them is to the 

 south. They go down tow^ard the Antarctic regions to dispense 

 their heat and get cool ; and the cold of the Antarctic, therefore, 

 it may be inferred, is not so bitter as is the extreme cold of the 

 Frozen Ocean of the north. 



543. The warm flow to the south from the middle of the In- 

 dian Ocean is remarkable. Masters who return their abstract logs 

 to me mention sea weed, which I suppose to be brought down by 

 this current, as far as 45° south. There it is generally, but not 

 always, about 5 degrees warmer than the ocean along the same 

 parallel on either side. 



544. But the most unexpected discovery of all is that of the 

 warm flow along the west coast of South Africa, its junction with 

 the Lagullas current, called, higher up, the Mozambique, and then 

 their starting off as one stream to the southward. The prevalent 

 opinion used to be that the Lagullas current, which has its genesis 

 in the Red Sea (§ 55), doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and then 

 joined the great equatorial current of the Atlantic to feed the Gulf 

 Stream. But my excellent friend Lieutenant Marin Jansen, of the 

 Dutch Navy, suggested to me a few months ago that this was 

 probably not the case. This induced a special investigation, and 

 I found as he suggested, and as is represented on Plate IX. Cap- 

 tain N. B. Grant, in the admirably well-kept abstract log of his 

 voyage from New York to Australia, found this current remarka- 

 bly developed. He w^as astonished at the temperature of its wa- 

 ters, and did not know how to account for such a body of warm 

 water in such a place. Being in longitude 14° east and latitude 

 39° south, he thus writes in his abstract log ; 



" That there is a current setting to the eastward across the 

 South Atlantic and Indian Oceans is, I believe, admitted by all 

 navigators. The prevailing westerly winds seem to offer a suffi- 

 cient reason for the existence of such a current, and the almost 

 constant southwest swell would naturally give it a northerly direc- 

 tion. But why the water should be loarmer here (38° 40^ south) 

 than between the parallels of 35° and 37° south is a problem that, 

 in my mind, admits not of so easy solution, especially if my sus- 



