58 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



results are brought about. To him who does this, the sea, with 

 its physical geography, becomes as the main-spring of a watch ; 

 its waters, and its currents, and its salts, and its inhabitants, with 

 their adaptations, as balance-wheels, cogs and pinions, and jewels. 

 Thus he perceives that they, too, are according to design ; that 

 they are the expression of One Thought, a unity with harmonies 

 which One IntelHgence, and One Intelligence alone, could utter. 

 And when he has arrived at this point, then he feels that the study 

 of the sea, in its physical aspect, is truly sublime. It elevates 

 the mind and ennobles the man. The Gulf Stream is now no 

 longer, therefore, to be regarded by such an one merely as an im- 

 mense current of warm water running across the ocean, but as a 

 balance-wheel — a part of that grand machinery by which air and 

 water are adapted to each other, and by which this earth itself is 

 adapted to the well-being of its inhabitants — of the flora which 

 decks, and the fauna which enlivens its surface. 



78. Let us now consider the influence of the Gulf Stream upon 

 the meteorology of the ocean. 



To use a sailor expression, the Gulf Stream is the great "weath- 

 er breeder" of the North Atlantic Ocean. The most furious gales 

 of wind sweep along with it ; and the fogs of Newfoundland, 

 which so much endanger navigation in winter, doubtless owe their 

 existence to the presence, in that cold sea, of immense volumes of 

 warm water brought by the Gulf Stream. Sir Philip Brooke 

 found the air on each side of it at the freezing point, while that 

 of its waters was 80°. " The heavy, warm, damp air over the 

 current produced great irregularities in his chronometers." The 

 excess of heat daily brought into such a region by the waters of 

 the Gulf Stream would, if suddenly stricken from them, be suffi- 

 cient to make the column of superincumbent atmosphere hotter 

 than melted iron. 



79. With such an element of atmospherical disturbance in its 

 bosom, we might expect storms of the most violent kind to ac- 

 company it in its course. Accordingly, the most terrific that 

 rage on the ocean have been known to spend their fury within or 

 near its borders. 



80. Our nautical works tell us of a storm which forced this 



