§ 167-169. GULF STREAISI, CLIMATES, AND COMMERCE. 59 



thus dammed up is said to have rushed out with frightful ve- 

 locity against the fury of the gale, producing a sea that beggared 

 description. The "great hurricane" of 1780 commenced at Bar- 

 badoes. In it the bark Was blown from the trees, and the fruits 

 of the earth destroyed; the very bottom and depths of the sea 

 were uprooted, and the waves rose to such a height that forts and 

 castles were w^ashed away, and their great guns carried about in 

 the air like chaff; houses were razed, ships were wrecked, and 

 the bodies of men and beasts lifted up in the air and dashed to 

 pieces in the storm. At the different islands, not less than twenty 

 thousand persons lost their lives on shore, while farther to the 

 north, the "Sterling Castle" and the "Dover Castle," men-of-war, 

 went down at sea, and fifty sail were driven on shore at the Ber- 

 mudas. 



167. Several years ago the British Admiralty set on foot in^ 

 Inquiries instituted quirics as to the causc of the storms in certain parts 

 by the Admiralty. q£ ^|^q Atlantic, which SO oftcu Tagc with disastrous 

 effects to navigation. The result may be summed up in the c 'i- 

 clusion to which the investigation led: that they are occasioned, 

 by the irregularity between the temperature of the Gulf Stream 

 and of the neighboring regions, both in the air and water. 



168. The southern points of South America and Africa have 

 The most stormy sea. wou for thcmsclvcs, amoug scamcn, the name of 

 " the stormy capes ;" but investigations carried on in that mine of 

 sea-lore contained in the los^-books at the National Observatorv 

 have shown that there is not a storm-fiend in the wide ocean can 

 out-top that which rages along the Atlantic coasts of Korth 

 America. The China seas and the North Pacific may vie in the 

 fury of their gales with this part of the Atlantic, but Cape Horn 

 and the Cape of Good Hope can not equal them, certainly, in fre- 

 quency, nor do I believe in fury. 



169. In the ex-tropical regions of the south we lack those con- 

 Northem seas more trasts which the mouutaius, the deserts, the plains, 



boisterous than south- , . , _^ 1 no t n 



era. the continents, and the seas 01 the north aiiord tor 



the production of atmospherical disturbances. Neither have we 

 in the southern seas such contrasts of hot and cold currents. The 

 flow of warm water toward the pole, and of polar water toward 

 the equator is as great — perhaps if measured according to volume, 

 is greater in the southern hemisphere. But in the southern hemi- 



