INFLUENCE OF THE GULF STREA.M UPON CLIMATES. 



47 



CHAPTER II. 



INFLUENCE OF THE GULF STREAM UPON CLIMATES. 



An Illustration, «J 60. — Best Fish in cold Water, 65. — The Sea a Part of a grand Ma- 

 chine, 67. — Influence of the Gulf Stream upon the Meteorology of the Sea: It is a 

 "Weather Breeder," 69. — Dampness of Climate of England due to it, 70. — The Pole 

 of Maximum Cold, 71.— Gales of the Gulf Stream, 72.— The Wreck of the San 

 Francisco, 73. — Influence of the Gulf Stream upon Commerce and Navigation : Used 

 as a Land-mark, 77. — The first Description of it, 78. — Thermal Navigation, 81. 



60. Modern ingenuity has suggested a beautiful mode of warm- 

 ing houses in winter. It is done by means of hot water. The 

 furnace and the caldron are sometimes placed at a distance from 

 the apartments to be warmed. It is so at the Observatory. In 

 this case, pipes are used to conduct the heated water from the 

 caldron under the superintendent's dwelling over into one of the 

 basement rooms of the Observatory, a distance of one hundred 

 feet. These pipes are then flared out so as to present a large cool- 

 ing surface ; after which they are united into one again, through 

 which the water, being now cooled, returns of its own accord to 

 the caldron. Thus cool water is returning all the time and flow- 

 ing in at the bottom of the caldron, while hot water is continually 

 flowing out at the top. 



The ventilation of the Observatory is so arranged that the cir> 

 culation of the atmosphere through it is led from this basement 

 room, where the pipes are, to all other parts of the building ; and 

 in the process of this circulation, the warmth conveyed by the 

 water to the basement is taken thence by the air and distributed 

 over all the rooms. Now, to compare small things with great, we 

 have, in the warm w^aters which are confined in the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico, just such a heating apparatus for Great Britain, the North 

 Atlantic, and Western Europe. 



The furnace is the torrid zone ; the Mexican Gulf and Carib- 

 bean Sea are the caldrons ; the Gulf Stream is the conducting pipe. 

 From the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the shores of Eu- 

 rope is the basement — the hot-air chamber — in which this pipe is 



