CIJBBENTS OF THE SEA. 187 



alone, and not the fi-ozen seas of the Arctic, cradle the icebergs for 

 the North Pacific. 



392. The Lagulhas current, as the Mozambique is sometimes 

 The LagTiiiias Cur- called, sku'ts the coast of Natal as our Gulf Stream 



rent aiid the storms -, ,-• i i* n • i -i • -in 



of the cap.^ Qocs tlie coast 01 (jrcorgia, where it gives rise to the 



most grand and terrible displays of thmider and hghtning that are 

 anywhere else to be witnessed. Missionaries thence report to me the 

 occmTence there of thunder-storms in which for hours consecutively 

 they have seen an uninterrupted blaze of lightning, and heard a 

 continuous peal of thmider. Eeaching the Lagulhas banks, the 

 current spreads itself out there in the midst of cooler waters, and 

 becomes the centre of one of the most remarkable storm-regions in the 

 world. My friend and fellow-labom^er, Lieut. Andrau, of the Dutch 

 Navy, has made the storms upon these banks a specialty for study. 

 He has pointed out from the abstract logs at Utrecht the existence 

 there of some cm-ious and interesting atmospherical phenomena to 

 which this body of warm water gives rise. The storms that it calls 

 up come rushing from the westward ; — sweeping along parallel 

 with the coast of Africa, they curve along it. Though so near the 

 land, they seldom reach it. They march into these warm waters 

 with forious speed ; reaching them with a low barometer, they 

 pause and die out. That officer has conferred a boon upon the 

 Indiamen of all flags, for he has taught them how to avoid these 

 dreadful winter storms of the Cape. ■ 



393. There is sometimes, if not always, another exit of warm 

 drift ^orr^ind"'^ water from the Lidian Ocean. It seems to be an 

 Ocean. ovcrflow of the great intertropical caldi'on of Lidia ; 

 — seeking to escape thence, it works its way polarvmrd more as a 

 drift than as a current. It is to the Mozambique current what the 

 northern flow of warm waters in the Atlantic (§ 141) is to the Gulf 

 Stream. This Indian overflow is very large. The best indication 

 of it is afforded by the sperm whale curve (Plate IX.). This over- 

 flow finds its way south midway between Africa and Austraha, and 

 appears to lose itself in passing round a sort of Sargasso Sea, thinly 

 strewed with patches of weed. Nor need we be sm^prised at such 

 a vast flow of warm water as these tliree currents indicate from the 

 Indian Ocean, when we recollect that this ocean (§ 392) is land- 

 locked on the north, and that the temperature of its waters is fre- 

 quently as high as 90^ Fahr. There must, therefore, be immense 

 volumes of water flowing into the Indian Ocean to supply the waste 

 created by these warm currents. 



