60 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



ill that cold sea, of immense volumes of warm ^vater brought by the 

 Gulf Stream. Sir Philij) Brooke found the temperature of the air 

 on each side of it at the freezing-point, while that of its waters was 

 80^. " The heavy, warm, damp air over the current produced 

 great irregularities in his chronometers." The excess of heat daily 

 brought into such a region by the waters of the Gulf Stream would, 

 if suddenly stricken from them, be sufficient to make the column of 

 superincumbent atmosphere hotter than melted iron. With such 

 an element of atmospherical distm'bance in its bosom, w^e might 

 expect storms of the most violent kind to accompany it in 

 its course. Accordingly, the most terrific that rage on the ocean 

 have been kno^vn to spend their fm-y within or near its borders. 

 Of all storms, the hurricanes of the West Indies and the typhoons 

 of the China seas cause the most ships to founder. The stoutest 

 men-of-war go down before them, and seldom, indeed, is any one 

 of the crew left to tell the tale. Of this the Hornet, the Albany, 

 and the Grampus, armed cruisers in the American navy, all are 

 memorable and melancholy examples. Our nautical w^orks tell 

 us of a West India hrn'ricane so violent that it forced the GuK 

 Stream back to its som'ces, and piled up the water in the Gulf to 

 the height of thu^ty feet. The Ledbury Snow attempted to ride it 

 out. When it abated, she fomid herself high up on the diy land, 

 and discovered that she had let go her anchor among the tree-tops 

 on Elliott's Key. The Florida Keys were inundated many feet, 

 and, it is said, the scene presented in the Gulf Stream was never 

 surpassed in awful sublimity on the ocean. The water thus dammed 

 up rushed out with frightful velocity against the fmy of the gale, 

 producing a sea that beggared description. The "great hmii- 

 cane " of 1780 commenced in Barbadoes. 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 ujDrooted, and the waves rose to 

 such a height that forts and castles were washed away, and their 

 great guns carried about in the au' like chaff ; houses were razed ; 

 ships T^Tecked ; and the bodies of men and beasts hfted 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 '^ Stirling Castle " and the " Dover Castle," 

 British men-of-war, went down at sea, and fifty sail w^ere driven on 

 shore at the Bermudas. 



167. Several years ago the British Admiralty set on foot inquiries 

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



by the Admiralty, ■"- 



