162 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



Gulf Stream, between the Philippines and the shores of Asia. 

 Thence it attempts the great circle route (§ 53) for the Aleutian 

 Islands, tempering climates, and losing itself in the sea on its 

 route toward the northwest coast of America. 



442. Between the physical features of this current and the 

 Gulf Stream of the Atlantic there are several points of resem- 

 blance. Sumatra and Malacca correspond to Florida and Cuba ; 

 Borneo to the Bahamas, with the Old Providence Channel to the 

 south, and the Florida Pass to the west. The coasts of China 

 answer to those of the United States, the Philippines to the Ber- 

 mudas, the Japan Islands to Newfoundland. As with the Gulf 

 Stream, so also here with this China current, there is a counter- 

 current of cold water between it and the shore. The climates of 

 the Asiatic coast correspond with those of America along the At- 

 lantic, and those of Columbia, Washington, and Vancouver are 

 duplicates of those of Western Europe and the British Islands ; 

 the climate of California (State) resembling that of Spain ; the 

 sandy plains and rainless regions of Lower California reminding 

 one of Africa, -with its deserts between the same parallels, etc. 



443. Moreover, the North Pacific, like the North Atlantic, is 

 enveloped, wdiere these warm waters go, with mists and fogs, and 

 streaked with lightiihig. The Aleutian Islands are almost as re- 

 nowned for fogs and mists as are the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. 



444. A surface current flows north through Behring's Strait 

 into the Arctic Sea ; but in the Atlantic the current is from, not 

 into the Arctic Sea : it flows south on the surface, north below ; 

 Behring's Strait being too shallow to admit of mighty under cur- 

 rents, or to permit the introduction from the polar basin of any 

 large icebergs into the Pacific. 



445. Behring's Strait, in geographical position, answers to Da- 

 vis's Strait in the Atlantic ; and Alaska, with its Aleutian chain 

 of islands, to Greenland. But instead of there being to the east 

 of Alaska, as there is to the east of Greenland, an escape into the 

 polar basin for these warm waters of the Pacific, a shore-line inter- 

 venes, and turns them down through a sort of North Sea along 

 the western coast of the continent toward ]\Iexico. They appear 

 here as a cold current. The effect of this body of cool water upon 



