C2 rnrsiCAL geography of the sea, and its meteorology. 



but his admiration can never grow into adoration nnless he will 

 talre the trouble to look behind and study, in some of its details 

 at least, the exquisite system of machinery by which such beau- 

 tiful results are brought about. To him who does this, the sea, 

 with its ph3^sical geography, becomes as the main-spring of a 

 watch ; its wateis, and its currents, and its salt, and its inhabit- 

 ants, with their adaptations, as balance-wheels, cogs, and pinions, 

 and jewels in the terrestrial mechanism. Thus he perceives that 

 the}' too are according to design — parts of the physical machineiy 

 that are the expression of One Thought, — a unity, with har- 

 monies which One Intelligence, and One Intelligence alone, 

 could utter. And when he has arrived at this point, then he 

 feels that the study of the sea, in its physical aspects, is truly 

 sublime. It elevates the mind and ennobles the man; for " His 

 gentleness makes " it great. The Gulf Stream is now no longer, 

 therefore, to be regarded by such a one merely as an immense 

 current of warm water running across the ocean, but as a balance- 

 wheel — a part of that grand machinery by which air and water 

 are adapted to each other, and by which this earth itself is 

 adapted to the well-being of its inhabitants — of the flora which 

 deck, and the fauna which enliven its surface. 



166. Meteorology OF the sea: Gulf Stream the loecdher-hreeder 

 — its storms — the great hurricane of 1780. — Let us now consider the 

 Influence of the Gulf Stream upon the Ileteorologij of the Ocean. To 

 use a sailor's expression, the Gulf Stream is the great " weather- 

 breeder" of the North Atlantic Ocean. The most furious gales 

 of wind sweep along with it ; and the fogs of Newfoundland, 

 which so much endanger navigation in spring and summer, 

 doubtless owe their existence to the presence, in that cold sea, of 

 immense volumes of warm water brought by the Gulf Stream. 

 Sir Philip Brooke found the tempera tui'e of the air on each side 

 of it at the freezing-point, while that of its waters was 80^. 

 *' The heavy, warm, damp air over the cuiTcnt produced great 

 irregularities in his chronometers." The excess of heat daily 

 brought into such a region by the waters of the Gulf Stream 

 would, if suddenly stricken from them, be sufficient to make the 

 column of superincumbent atmosphere hotter than melted iron. 

 ^Vith such an element of atmospherical disturbance in its bosom, 

 v/e might expect storms of the most violent kind to accompany it 

 in its course. Accordingly, the most terrific that rage on the 

 ocean have been known to spend their fuiy within or near its 



