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of the Pacific, and the Grnlf Stream of the Atlantic there are 

 Se^p^Sec cont^°^ "^ several points of resemblance. Simiatra and Ma- 

 trasted with the lacca corrcspond to Florida and Cuba; Borneo to 

 Atiantia^"^ ^ ^ the Bahamas, with the Old Providence Channel to 

 the south, and the Florida Pass to the west. The coasts of China 

 answer to those of the United States, the Philippines to the Ber- 

 mudas, the Japan Islands to ]S[e^vfoundland. As "svith the Gulf 

 Stream, so also here with this China current, there is a counter 

 cmTent of cold water between it and the shore. The chmates of 

 the Asiatic coast correspond with those of America along the At- 

 lantic, and those of Columbia, Washington, and Vancouver resemble 

 those of Western Europe and the British Islands ; the climate of 

 California (State) resembles that of Spain ; the sandy plains and 

 rainless regions of Lower Cahfornia reminding one of Africa, with 

 its deserts between the same parallels, etc. Moreover, the North 

 Pacific, like the North Atlantic, is enveloped, where these warm 

 waters go, with mists and fogs, and streaked mth liglitning. The 

 Aleutian Islands are almost as renoT\Tied for fogs and mists as are 

 the Grand Banks of NeTsrfoundland. A smface current flows north 

 from Behring's Strait into the Arctic Sea ; but in the Atlantic the 

 current is from, not into the Ai'ctic Sea : it flows south on the 

 surface, north below ; Behring's Strait being too shallow to admit 

 of mighty under cm^rents, or to permit the introduction fi.'om the 

 polar basin of any large icebergs into the Pacific. Behring's Strait, 

 in geographical position, answers to Davis' Strait in the Atlantic ; 

 and Alaska, with its Aleutian chain of islands, to Greenland. But 

 instead of there being to the east of Alaska, as there is to the east 

 of Greenland, an escape into the polar basin for these warm waters 

 of the Pacific, a shore-line intervenes; being cooled here, and 

 having their specific gravity changed, they are tm-ned down 

 through a sort of North Sea along the western coast of the con- 

 tinent toward Mexico. They appear here as a cold current. The 

 efiect of this body of cold water upon the littoral climate of Cali- 

 fornia is very marked. Being cool, it gives freshness and strength 

 to the sea breeze of that coast in summer-time, when the " cooling 

 sea breeze " is most grateful. These contrasts show the principal 

 points of resemblance and of contrast between the cmTents and 

 aqueous cuTulation in the two oceans. The ice-bearing currents 

 of the North Atlantic are not repeated as to volume in the North 

 Pacific, for there is no nursery for icebergs like the fL^ozen ocean 

 and its Atlantean arms. The seas of Okotsk and Kamtschatka 



