60 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



but little more than tivo thousand miles, in a northwestwardly di- 

 rection, from the summer-heated waters of this stream. This 

 proximity of extremes of greatest cold and summer heat will, as 

 observations are multij^lied and discussed, be probably found to 

 have much to do with the storms that rage with such fury on the 

 left side of the Gulf Stream. 



85. I am not prepared to maintain that the Gulf Stream is 

 really the " Storm King" of the Atlantic, which has power to con- 

 trol the march of every gale that is raised there ; but the course 

 of many gales has been traced from the place of their origin di- 

 rectly to the Gulf Stream. Gales that take their rise on the coast 

 of i^frica, and even as far down on that side as the parallel of 10° 

 or 15° north latitude, have, it has been shown by an examination 

 of log-books, made straight for the Gulf Stream ; joining it, they 

 have then been known to turn about, and, traveling with this 

 stream, to recross the Atlantic, and so reach the shores of Europe. 

 In this way the tracks of storms have been traced out and follow- 

 ed for a week or ten days. Their path is marked by wreck and 

 disaster. At the meeting of the American Association for the ad- 

 vancement of Science in 1854, Mr. Hedfield mentioned one which 

 he had traced out, and in which no less than seventy odd vessels 

 had been wrecked, dismasted, or damaged. 



86. Plate X. was prepared by Lieutenant B. S. Porter, from 

 data furnished by the log-books at the Observatory. It represents 

 one of these storms that commenced in August, 1848. It com- 

 menced more than a thousand miles from the Gulf Stream, made 

 a straight course for it, and traveled with it for many days. 



The dark shading shows the space covered by the gale, and the 

 white line in the middle shows the axis of the gale, or the line of 

 minimum barometric pressure. There are many other instances 

 of similar gales. Professor Espy informs us that he also has 

 traced many a gale from the land out toward the Gulf Stream. 



87. Now what should attract these terrific storms to the Gulf 

 Stream? Sailors dread storms in the Gulf Stream more than 

 they do in any other part of the ocean. It is not the fury of the 

 storm alone that they dread, but it is the " ugly sea" which these 

 storms raise. The current of the stream running in one direc- 



