§ 133-135. THE GULF STREAM. 4.5 



losing velocity and spreading out. Between each of tliese Gulf 

 Streams and its coasts there is a current of cool water setting to 

 the south. On the outside of each stream, and coming up from 

 the tropics, is a broad sheet of warm water ; it covers an area of 

 thousands of square miles, and its drift is to the north. Between 

 the northern drift on the one side and the southern set on the 

 other, there is in each ocean a sargasso (§ 88), into which all drift 

 matter, such as wood and weeds, finds its way. In both oceans 

 the Gulf Streams sweep across to the eastern shores, and so, 

 bounding these seas, interpose a barrier between them and the 

 higher parallels of latitude, which this drift matter can not pass. 

 Such are the points of resemblance between the two oceans and 

 in the circulation of their waters. 



133. A prominent point for contrast is afforded by the chan- 

 Their connection ncls or watcr-ways bctwecn the Arctic and these 

 Ocean. two occaus. With the Atlantic they are divers and 

 large ; with the Pacific there is but one, and it is both narrow 

 and shallow. In comparison with that of the Atlantic, the Gulf 

 Stream of the Pacific is sluggish, ill defined, and irregular. Were 

 the water-ways between the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean no 

 larger than Behring's Straits, our Gulf Stream would fall far be- 

 low that of the Pacific in majesty and grandeur. 



134. Here I am reminded to turn aside and call attention to an-' 

 The sargassos show othcr fact that mllitatcs against the vast current-be- 

 thl /rade!wS u^ getting powcr that has been given by theory to the 

 on currents. gentle tradc-wiuds. In both oceans these weedy 

 seas lie partly within the trade-wind region ; but in neither do 

 these winds give rise to any current. The weeds are partly out 

 of water, and the wind has therefore more power upon them than 

 it has upon the water itself; and if the supreme power over the 

 currents of the sea reside in the winds, as Sir John Herschel 

 would have it, then, of all places in the trade-wind region, we 

 should have here the strongest currents. Had there been cur- 

 rents here, these weeds would have been borne away long ago ; 

 but, so far from it, we simply know that they have been in the 

 Sargasso Sea (§ 88) of the Atlantic since the first voyage of Co- 

 lumbus. But to take up the broken thread. 



135. The water that is drifting north, on the outside of the Gulf 

 Stream, turns, with the Gulf Stream, to the east also. It can not 



