GULF STEEAM, CLIMATES, AND C0M5IERCE. 61 



Atlantic, which so often rage mth disastrous effects to navigation. 

 The result may be summed up in the conclusion to which the 

 investigation led : that they are occasioned by the irregularity 

 between the temperature of the Gulf Stream and of the neighbour- 

 ing regions, both in the air and water. 



168. The southern points of South America and Africa have won 

 The most stormy sea. for thcmselvcs, amoug seamon, the name of "the 

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

 lore contained in the log-books at the National Observatory at 

 Washington, have shown that there is not a stoim-find in the wide 

 ocean can out-top that which rages along the Atlantic coasts of 

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

 the fmy of their gales mth this part of the Atlantic, but Cape 

 Horn and the Cape of Grood Hope cannot equal them, certainly, in 

 frequency, nor do I believe in fury. 



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

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

 southern. the coutinents, and the seas of the north afford for 

 the production of atmospherical disturbances. Neither have we 

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

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

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

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

 sphere the currents are broad and sluggish; in the northern, 

 narrow, sharp, and strong. Then we have in the north other 

 climatic contrasts for which we may search southern seas in vain. 

 Hence, without fm^ther investigation, we may infer southern seas 

 to be less boisterous than northern. 



170. By a Kke reasoning we may judge the North Pacific to 

 storms in the North bo Icss boistcrous than the North Atlantic ; for, 

 Atlantic and Pacific. i^j^Q^^gli^e havo Continental climates on either side 

 of each, and a Gulf Stream in both, yet the Pacific is a very much 

 wler sea, and its Gulf Stream is (§ 54) not so warm, nor so sharp, 

 nor so rapid ; therefore the broad Pacific does not, on the whole, 

 present the elements of atmospherical disturbance in that com- 

 pactness which is so striking in the narrow North Atlantic. 



171. Nevertheless, though the North Pacific generally may not 

 storms along their bo SO stormy as the North Atlantic, we have reason 

 western shores. |q befievo that meteoTological agents of nearly equal 

 power are clustered along the western shores of each ocean. 

 Though the Gulf Stream of the Pacific is not so hot, nor the cool 



