THE GREAT ATLANTIC WHIRLPOOL. 39 



ter current, runs between the gulf-stream and the 

 coast ; the remainder meets the gulf-stream abruptly, 

 nearly opposite the projection of Cape Cod, whilst that 

 is still flowing at the speed of 50 or 60 miles per day. 

 This opposition deflects the gulf-stream across the At- 

 lantic. There it is spread over a breadth of at least 

 seven or eight degrees of latitude, and traverses 3000 

 miles to the Azores, which it reaches in 78 days, 

 lessening its speed as it grows wider ; but always re- 

 taining a higher temperature than the ocean across 

 which it flows. It then bends to the southward, and 

 wheels again to the west in 21 N. latitude, to re-enter 

 the Caribbean Sea, and repeat the circuit. Hence the 

 waters of the Atlantic may be said, as Humboldt has 

 it, to form one vast whirlpool between the parallels of 

 11 and 43 N. ; each particle of the water making 

 the round in about two years and ten months, having 

 travelled 3800 leagues in that time. 



The effect of this warm current on the animal and 

 vegetable life of the Atlantic is very remarkable. To 

 it we must attribute the diffusion of many species of 

 southern type along the American and European shores. 

 On the American coast the northern and southern 

 species suddenly change at Cape Cod, the former not 

 passing to the south, and the latter not extending to 

 the north of that projection. It brings Sargassum or 

 "gulf weed" to the shores of Long Island, where it 

 has effected a "location;" just as it frequently wafts 

 stray fragments of this and other tropical productions 

 far into the northern ocean, to be drifted across the 

 Atlantic to the shores of Ireland and Norway. In this 



