316 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



east of New Holland. It is bound for the icy barriers of that un- 

 known sea, there to temper climates, grow cool, and return again, 

 refreshing man and beast by the way, either as the Humboldt 

 Current, or the ice-bearing current which 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 Koss was enabled to penetrate so 

 much farther south than Captain Wilkes, on his voyage to the 

 Antarctic, and it is upon these waters that that sea is to be pen- 

 etrated, if ever. The North 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 toward the Antarctic regions to dispense 

 their heat and get cool ; and the cold of the Antarctic, therefore, 

 it may be inferred, is not so bitter as is the extreme cold of the 

 Frozen Ocean of the north. 



908. The warm flow to the south from the middle of the In- 

 dian Ocean is remarkable, blasters who return their abstract 

 logs to me mention sea-weed, which I suppose to be brought down 

 by this current, as far as 45° south. There it is generally, but 

 not always, about 5 degrees warmer than the ocean along the 

 same parallel on either side. , 



909. But the most unexpected discovery of all is that of the 

 warm flow along the west coast of South Africa, its junction with 

 the LaguUas current, called, higher up, the ^Mozambique, and then 

 their starting off as one stream to the southward. The prevalent 

 opinion used to be that the Lagullas cuiTcnt, which has its gene- 

 sis in the Red Sea (§ 440), 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 ]\Iarin Jansen, 

 of the Dutch JSTavy, suggested that this was probably not the case. 

 This induced a special investigation, and I found as he suggested, 

 and as is represented on Plate IX. 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 as- 

 tonished at the temperature of its waters, and did not know how 

 to account for such a body of warm water in such a place. Being 



