GULP STKKiM, CLIMATES, AlU) COlTuEECE. 5D 



there found a surface current setting to the south, and bearing v/ith 

 it this extremely cold water, with vast numbers of icebergs, whose 

 centres, perhaps, were far below zero. It would be cm-ious to as- 

 certain the routes of these under cm-rents on their way to the tropi- 

 cal regions, which they are intended to cool. One has been found 

 at the equator (§ 97) two hundred miles broad and 23^ colder than 

 the smface water. Unless the land or shoals intervene, it no doubt 

 comes down in a spiral curve (§ 96), approaching in its course the 

 great circle route. 



158. Perhaps the best indication as to these cold cm-rents may 

 Fish and currents. \)q dcrivcd from the fisli cf the sea. The whales, by 

 avoiding its warm waters, pointed out to the fisherman the exist- 

 ence of the Gulf Stream. Along our own coasts, all those delicate 

 animals and marine productions Avhich dehght in warmer waters 

 are wanting ; thus indicating, by their absence, the prevalence of 

 the cold cm-rent from the north now knov/n to exist there. In the 

 genial warmth of the sea about the Bermudas on one hand, and 

 Africa on the other, we find, in great abundance, those delicate 

 sheU-fish and coral formations which are altogether wanting in the 

 same latitudes along the shores of South Carolina. The same ob- 

 tains in the west coast of South America ; for there the immense 

 flow of polar waters knov^m as Humboldt's CmTent almost reexdies 

 the hne before the first sprig of coral is found to grow. A fev^ 

 years ago, great numbers of bonita and albercore — tropical fish — 

 following the GvHi Stream, entered the English Channel, and 

 alarmed the fishermen of Cornwall and Devonshire by the havoc 

 which they created among the pilchards. It may well be ques- 

 tioned if the Atlantic cities and towns of America do not owe their 

 excellent fish-markets, and the watering-places their refi-eshing sea- 

 bathing in summer, to this littoral strea^m of cold water. The 

 temperatm-e of the MediteiTanean is 4"^ or 5^ above the ocean tem- 

 perature of the same latitude, and the fish there are, for the most 

 part,, very indifferent. On the other hand, the temperature along 

 the American coast is several degrees below that of the ocean, and 

 from Maine to Florida, tables are supplied with the most excellent 

 of fish. The sheep's-head of this cold cmTent, so much esteemed 

 in Virginia and the Carolinas, loses its flavom^ and is held in no 

 esteem, when taken on the warm coral banks of the Bahamas. The 

 same is the case with other fish : when taken in the cold water of 

 that coast, they have a dehcious flavom-, and are highly esteemed ; 

 but when taken in the warm water on the other ecWe of the GuK 



