402 'i^iil^ PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



So also the Yellow Sea. Along the coasts of China, yellowish- 

 colored spots are said not to be uncommon. I know of no exam- 

 ination of this coloring matter, however. In the Pacific Ocean I 

 have often observed these discolorations of the sea. Ked patches 

 of water are most frequently met with, but I have also observed 

 white or milky appearances, which at night I have known greatly 

 to alarm navigators by their being taken for shoals. 



748. These teeming waters bear off through their several chan- 

 The escape of waiin ncls the surplus hcat of the tropics, and disperse it 



waters from the Pa- n • ^ n ^^ \ , . • n ii ' 



eific. among the icebergs oi the Antarctic. See the im- 



mense equatorial flow to the east of Australia, and which I have 

 called the Polynesian Drift. It is bound for the icy barriers of 

 that unknown sea, there to temper climates, grow cool, and return 

 again, refreshing man and beast by the way, either as the Hum- 

 boldt current, or the ice-bearing current which enters the Atlan- 

 tic around Cape Horn, and changes into warm again as it enters 

 the Gulf of Guinea. It was owing to this great southern flow from 

 the coral regions that Captain Eoss was enabled to penetrate so 

 much, farther south than Captain Wilkes on his voyage to the 

 Antarctic. The North Pacific, except in the narrow passage be- 

 tween Asia and America, is closed to the escape of these warm 

 waters into the Arctic Ocean. The only outlet for them is to the 

 south. They go down toward the antarctic regions to dispense 

 their heat and get cool ; and the cold of the Antarctic, therefore, 

 it may be inferred, is not so bitter as is the extreme cold of the 

 Frozen Ocean of the north. 



749. The warm flow to the south from the middle of the Indian 

 Ditto from the Indian Occau is lemarkablc. Masters who return their 

 ^^^^°- abstract logs to me mention sea- weed, which I sup- 

 pose to be brought down by this current, as far as 45° south. 

 There it is generall}^, but not always, about 5 degrees warmer 

 than the ocean along the same parallel on either side. 



750. But the most unexpected discovery of all is that of the 

 A wide current, warm flow aloug the wcst coast of South Africa, its 



junction with the Lagulhas current, called, higher up, the Mozam- 

 bique, and then their starting off as one stream to the southward. 

 The prevalent opinion used to be that the Lagulhas current, which 

 lias its genesis in the Bed Sea (§ 890), doubled the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and then joined the great equatorial current of the Atlantic 



