66 Temperature Sections Surveyed. 



equatorial current, separated from the latter during its course 

 through the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and joining 

 it again after coming out of Florida Strait, from which place it 

 forms the western edge of the great mass of equatorial waters 

 during its further progress towards the north. 



The Channel of Yucatan, by which the Equatorial Current 

 enters the Gulf of Mexico, presents a much wider section than the 

 Florida Channel, whence the current issues under the name of 

 the Gulf Stream, and it seems as though more water flowed 

 into the gulf than out of it, unless it flow out with increased 

 velocity. It has been calculated that a difference of level 

 amounting to two feet — a difference which falls within the 

 error of even the most careful survey embracing so large an 

 area — creates sufficient pressure to force the water through the 

 Strait of Florida at the rate of four miles an hour, at which the 

 Gulf Stream is known to flow out of the Strait. A similar 

 phenomenon, occurring under similar conditions, may be 

 observed in connection with the Kuro-Siwo current. A branch of 

 the North Pacific Equatorial Current flows into the basin situated 

 between the Philippine and the Ladrone Islands, which basin, like 

 the Caribbean Sea, is separated from the ocean by a chain 

 of islands, the projecting points of a submarine ridge, and the 

 northern and narrow half of this basin stands in the same relation 

 to the southern half as the Mexican Gulf to the Caribbean Sea. 

 The current, after passing along the east coast of the Philippines, 

 of Formosa, and of the islands which connect the latter with 

 Japan, has to force its way, and, like the Gulf Stream, in the 

 face of a contending polar current, over the shallow barrier 

 which joins Japan to the chain of islands terminating with the 

 Ladrone Group. After crossing this barrier, it unites itself to 

 the portion of the North Pacific Equatorial Current which 

 flows along the eastern side of these islands, and the two com- 

 bined form the Kuro-Siwo current, whose waters are traced 



