72 ^ THE OCEAN. 



folds across the ocean, and from its head, which it waves here and 

 there over the shores, wafts a gentle breeze^ or pours forth storm 

 and lightning. 



The Gulf-stream crosses the Atlantic with a mean speed of about 

 24 miles a day, as has been ascertained either by direct measurement 

 at different parts of the ocean, or by means of notes, which having 

 been thrown overboard in bottles carefully closed, have floated for 

 weeks or months at the will of the waves, and then been fished 

 up in other latitudes or found on some sea-shore. In their long 

 passage, the deep waters of the marine river of America transport 

 scarcely any other alluvium than the living frustules of animalcula, 

 which fill the tepid waters of the current and are constantly falling 

 in a kind of snow to the bottom of tlie sea. But here and there on 

 the surface of the Gulf-stream float trunks and branches of trees, 

 which are finally thrown on some coast of Europe, and even on the 

 island of Spitzbergen. It was these remains which our ancestors 

 of the middle ages believed to come from the fabulous island of St 

 Brandan or from Antilia, and which furnished matter for thought to 

 daring navigators like the great Columbus.* Seeds carried from the 

 New AVorld by the current have found a favourable soil on the 

 shore of the Azores, and although many thousands of miles from 

 their native land, have germinated and borne fruit. Often too the 

 waves of the Gulf-stream bring to Europe the broken products of 

 human industry and tlie timber of wrecked ships. During the Seven 

 Years' War, the mainmast of an English ship-of-war, the Tilbury^ 

 which had been burnt near St. Domingo, was found on the northern 

 coasts of Scotland. In the same way a river-boat, laden with ma- 

 hogany, was once even driven to the Fiiroe islands. The remains of 

 ships, wrecked in the latitude of Guinea, have been brought to the 

 coast of the British Islands, after having twice crossed the ocean in 

 opposite directions ; and Esquimaux have often been carried by the 

 waves to the Orkneys. f 



It is rather difficult to lay down the precise route of the Gulf-stream 

 in the seas of western Europe, because of the enormous width of its 

 moving expanse. One may say that in reality it stretches over the whole 

 ocean, from the Azores to Spitzbergen ; but having lost in its onward 

 impulse in proportion as it has gained in extent, it is modified and 

 turned aside in its course by a host of local circumstances and the 

 varied configuration of the coasts of Europe. Only that part of the cur- 



* F. G. Kolil, Geschiehte dcs Golfstroms, p. 17. 

 t Humboldt, Ansichten der Katur, notes. 



