TrDE-RiPS A^^) sea drift. 387" 



was enabled to penetrate so much farther south than Captain 

 Wilkes on his voyage to the Antarctic. The North Pacific, 

 except in the narrow passage between Asia and America, is 

 closed to the escape of these warm waters into the Arctic Ocean. 

 The only outlet for them is to the south. They go down 

 towards the antarctic regions to dispense their heat and get cool ; 

 and the cold of the Antarctic, therefore, it may be inferred, is 

 not so bitter as is the extreme cold of the Frozen Ocean of the 

 north. 



749. The warm flow to the south from the middle of the 

 Ditto from the Indian Indian Oceau is remarkable. Masters who return 

 *^^^*"- their abstract logs to me mention sea- weed, which 

 I suppose to be brought down by this current, as far as 45^ 

 south. There, it is generally, but not always, about 5 degrees 

 warmer than the ocean along the same parallel on either side. 



750. But the most unexpected discovery of all is that of the 

 A wide current. Warm flow aloug the west coast of South Africa, its 



junction with the Lagulhas current, called, higher up, the Mozam- 

 bique, and then their starting off as one stream to the south- 

 ward. The prevalent opinion used to be that the Lagulhas cur- 

 rent, which has its genesis in the Red Sea (§ 390), doubled the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and then joined the great equatorial current 

 of the Atlantic to feed the Gulf Stream. But my excellent 

 friend. Lieutenant Marin Jansen, of the Dutch Navy, suggested 

 that this was probably not the case. This induced a special 

 investigation, and I found as he suggested, and as is represented 

 on Plate IX. Captain N. B. Grant, in the admirably well-kept 

 abstract log of his voyage from New York to Australia, found 

 this current remarkably developed. He was astonished at the 

 temperature of its waters, and did not know how to account for 

 such a body of warm water in such a place. Being in longitude 

 14^ east, and latitude 39^ south, he thus writes in his abstract 

 log : " That there is a current setting to the eastward across the 

 South Atlantic and Indian Oceans is, I believe, admitted by all 

 navigators. The prevailing westerly winds seem to offer a suffi- 

 cient reason for the existence of such a current, and the almost 

 constant south-west swell would naturally give it a northerly 

 direction. But why the water should be warmer here (88 '^ 40' 

 south) than between the parallels of oo^ and 37^ south, is a pro- 

 blem that, in my mind, admits not of so easy solution, especially 

 if my suspicions are true in regard to the northerly set. I shall 



2 c 2 



