CHAPTER VI. 

 RIVERS IN THE SEA 



" Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow." COWPER. 

 "As winds that coerce the sea." C. G. ROSSETTI. 



A CTUAL Rivers in the Ocean ; distinct 

 ^*- streams of water, flowing over a bed of 

 water, with banks of water. Not merely one or 

 two such rivers, but scores of them, hundreds 

 of them, great and small, in all parts of the 

 world. 



Chief perhaps in importance is the Gulf 

 Stream, that vast flood which pours out of the 

 Gulf of Mexico, and acts as a winter heating 

 apparatus for the west of Europe. Though by 

 no means the largest of ocean streams, it is one 

 of the most useful to man. 



After quitting the Gulf, it hurries at speed 

 through the Straits of Florida; then spreads 

 out into a river, about fifty miles wide and over 

 two thousand feet deep, journeying at a rate 

 of some sixty miles in twelve hours. 



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