§ 127-129. THE GULF STREAM. 43 



127. In the offings of the Balize, sometimes as far out as a hund- 



Reluctance of layers ^^^ ^'^'^^^^ ^^ ^O^^ from thc land, puddlcS Of patchcS 



or patches to mingle. q£ Mississippi Water may be observed on the sur- 

 face of the sea with little or none of its brine mixed with it. This 

 anti-mixing property in water has already (§ 98) been remarked 

 upon. It may be observed, from the gutters in the street to the 

 rivers in the ocean, and every where, wherever two bodies of 

 water that differ in color are found in juxtaposition. The patches 

 of white, black, green, yellow, and reddish waters so often met 

 with at sea are striking and familiar examples. We have seen, 

 also, that a like proclivity exists (§ 99) between bodies or streams 

 of water that differ in temperature or velocity. This peculiarity 

 is often so strikingly developed in the neighborhood of the Gulf 

 Stream that persons have been led to suppose that the Gulf 

 Stream has forks in the sea, and that these are they. 



128. Now, if any vessel will take up her position a little to the 

 streaks of warm and northward of Bermuda, and steering thence for the 

 ^°°^- Capes of yirginia, will try the water-thermometer 

 all the way at short intervals, she will find its readings to be now 

 higher, now lower; and the observer will discover that he has 

 been crossing streak after streak of warm and cool water in regu- 

 lar alternations. He will then cease to regard them as bifurca- 

 tions of the Gulf Stream, and view them rather in the light of 

 thermal streaks of water which have, in the plan of oceanic cir- 

 culation and in the system of unequal heating and cooling, been 

 brought together. 



129. The waters of the Gulf Stream form by no means the only 

 Waters of the ocean ^ody of Warm watcr that the thermo-dynamical 

 tiiein^-djnamica^i^ forccs of the occau kccp iu motion. Nearly all 

 ^^^^' that portion of the Atlantic which lies between the 

 Gulf Stream and the island of Bermuda has its surface covered 

 with water which a tropical sun ^nd tropical winds have played 

 upon — with water, the specific gravity of which has been altered 

 by their action, and which is now drifting to more northern climes 

 in the endless search after lost equilibrium. This water, more- 

 over, as well as that of the Gulf Stream, cools unequally. It 

 would be surprising if it did not ; for by being spread out over 

 such a large area, and then drifting for so great a distance, and 

 through such a diversity of climates, it is not probable that all 



