EXTENT OE THE GTJLE-STEEAM. 7a 



rent which flows to the north of Ireland and Great Britain maintains 

 its original direction. It bathes all the islands between Scotland and 

 Iceland, warms the coasts of Norway, even in Lapland it melts the 

 ice at the port of Hammerfast, and then continues its course in the 

 Polar Sea towards Spitzbergen. Thus, as the Swedish expedition in 

 1861 ascertained, the current makes itself felt even on the northern 

 shores of the latter archipelago ; for the seeds of a plant from the 

 Antilles {Entada gigalohium) were found on the shore of Shoal-Point, 

 lying at more than 80 degrees north latitude. Indeed it is certain 

 that the current even bathes the western coasts of IN ova-Zembla, for 

 bottles that came from a glass factory at Norway, and the nets of 

 Scandinavian fishermen, have been found there. 



How then do these waters, which spread in such a vast sheet over 

 the surface of the Icy Sea, continue their progress towards the 

 Pole ? Here hypothesis commences, since no navigator has yet been 

 able to explore these latitudes and study their hydrological laws. But 

 we know at least in part the origin of the polar current, and by 

 the direction which this mass of water takes, may be indicated that 

 which the Gidf- stream itself must follow. Along all the northern 

 coasts of Siberia, as Wrangel and other explorers have told us, a 

 current of cold water flows from east to west. Encountering on 

 its way the large island of Nova-Zembla, it covers the strand and 

 rocks with enormous quantities of ice, which render the island quite 

 uninhabitable and close the straits to navigation. Arrested by this 

 barrier the waters of the glacial current are forced to bend to the 

 north, and flow in a north-westerly direction towards Spitzbergen, 

 round the northern archipelago of which they finally turn in order to 

 enter the seas around Greenland. It is here that they begin to take 

 a direct road towards the equatorial seas ; and all the navigators who 

 have ventured to the north-west of Iceland have recognized the ex- 

 istence of this stream, flowing along the coast-line as far as Cape 

 Farewell. . Its average speed, according to Graah and Scoresby, is 

 from 3 to 4 miles a day. 



To the south of Greenland the lessened sheet of the Gulf- stream 

 must meet this transverse current, and doubtless, in consequence of 

 the greater weight which its stronger proportion of saline substances 

 imparts to it, it plunges into the depths and is changed into a sub- 

 marine current, which finishes by mixing completely with the cold 

 waters of the northern seas, and flows back at last towards the equator 

 in an opposite direction to that which it at first pursued. Thus the 

 river of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico feeds by its incessant 



