30 rnYSICAL GEOGRArHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



meter, telling liim wlietlier the wmd as he fiuds it has been 

 blowmg for some time, or whether it has but just shifted, and 

 which way. Columbus first found this weedy sea on his voyage 

 of discovery ; there it has remained to this day, moving up and 

 down, and changing its jDosition, like the calms of Cancer, 

 according to the seasons, the storms, and the winds. Exact 

 observations as to its limits and their range, extending back for 

 fifty years, assure us that its mean position has not been altered 

 since that time. That the water which comes through the 

 Florida Pass with the Gulf Stream flows in a circle, going to the 

 north on the western side, and returning to the south on the east 

 side of the Atlantic — sloughing oif its drift matter always to the 

 right, is shown not only by the Sargasso and its weeds, but it is 

 indicated also, by our "bottle papers," by the facts developed in 

 Plate YI., and by other sources of information. If, therefore, 

 this be so, why give the endless current a higher level in one 

 part of its course than another ? 



89. A bifurcation. — Nay, more ; at the very season of the year 

 when the Gulf Stream is rushing in greatest volume through the 

 Straits of Florida, and hastening to the north with the greatest 

 rapidity, there is a cold stream from Baffin's Bay, Labrador, and 

 the coasts of the north, running to the south with equal velocity. 

 AYhere is the trade-wind that gives the higher level to Baffin's 

 Ba}", or that even presses upon, or assists to put this current 

 in motion ? The agency of winds in producing currents in the 

 deep sea must be very partial. These two currents meet ofi 

 the Grand Banks, where the latter is divided. One part of it 

 imderruns the Gulf Stream, as is shown by the icebergs which 

 are carried in a direction tending across its course. The pro- 

 bability is, that this " fork" flows on towards the south, and 

 runs into the Caribbean Sea, for the temperature of the water at 

 a little depth there has been found far below the mean tempera- 

 ture of the earth's crust, and quite as cold as at a corresponding 

 depth off the Arctic shores of Spitzbergen. 



90. Winds exercise hut little influence ii^on constant currents. — 

 More w^ater cannot run from the equator or the pole than to it. 

 If we make the trade-winds to cause the Gulf Stream, we ought 

 to have some other wind to produce the Polar flow ; but these 

 currents, for the most part, and for great distances, are submarine, 

 and therefore beyond the influence of winds. Hence it should ap- 

 pear that winds have little to do with the general system of aqueous 



