402 PHYSICAL GEOGllAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



enters the Atlantic around Cape Horn, and changes into warm 

 again as it enters the Gulf of Guinea. It was owing to this 

 great southern flow from the coral regions that Captain Eoss 

 was enabled to penetrate so much farther south than Captain 

 "Wilkes on his voyage to the Antarctic. The Korth 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 

 biitter as is the extreme cold of the Frozen Ocean of the north. 



749. Ditto from the Indian Ocean. —The warm flow to the south 

 fcomi the middle of the Indian Ocean is remarkable. IVIasters 

 who return their abstract logs to me mention sea-weed, which I 

 suppose to be brought down by this current, as far as 4.5^ south. 

 There, it is generally, but not always, about 5 degrees warmer 

 tiian the ocean along the same parallel on either side. 



750. A wide ourrent.--Bvit the most unexpected discovery of all 

 is that of the warm flow along 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 soutliward. 

 The prevalent opinion used to be that the Lagulhas current, 

 which has its genesis in the Eed 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 investi- 

 gation, and I found as he suggested, and as is represented on 

 Plate LK. 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 tlie 

 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 eastwai'd across the 

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

 navigators. The prevailing westerlj^ 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 (38° 40' 

 south) than between the parallels of 35° and 37° south, is a pro- 



