136 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



possibility of trunks of South American and "West Indian trees being 

 carried, in spite of the trade winds, to the coasts of the Canary 

 Islands, and stranded there. I have made many experiments on 

 the temperature of the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of the Banks of 

 Newfoundland. The stream brings the warmer water of lower lati- 

 tudes into more northern regions with much rapidity, and I have 

 thus found its temperature two or three degrees of Reaumur (5 to 

 7 Fah.) higher than that of the adjacent unmoved masses of water, 

 which form as it were the banks of the warm oceanic river. 



The flying fish of the tropics (Exocetus volitans) accompanies the 

 warm water of the Gulf Stream far into the temperate zone. Float- 

 ing sea-weed (Fucus natans), chiefly taken up by the stream in the 

 Gulf of Mexico, shows when a ship is entering the current, and the 

 arrangement of the branches of the sea-weed shows the direction of 

 the movement of the water. The mainmast of the English ship of 

 war, the Tilbury, destroyed by fire on the coast of San Domingo, 

 was carried by the Gulf Stream to the north coast of Scotland. Even 

 casks filled with palm oil, the remains of the cargo of a ship wrecked 

 off Cape Lopez on the coast of Africa, were carried in the same 

 manner to Scotland,* after having twice traversed the whole breadth 

 of the Atlantic; once from east to west with the equatorial current 

 between 2 and 12 N. lat., and once from west to east by the aid 

 of the Gulf Stream, between 45 and 55 N. lat. Rennell, in p. 347 

 of the " Investigation of Currents," relates the voyage of a bottle 

 with papers enclosed, thrown overboard by the English ship New- 

 castle on the 20th of January, 1819, in lat. 38 52', and long. 

 63 58', which was picked up, on the 2d of J.une, 1820, at the 

 Rosses (near the island of Arran), on the west coast of Ireland. A 

 short time before my arrival at Teneriffe, a stem t>f South American 

 cedar (Cedrela odorata), well covered with lichens, had been cast 

 ashore in the harbor of Santa Cruz. 



Effects of the Gulf Stream in stranding on the Islands of Fayal, 

 Flores, and Corvo in the Azores, bamboos, artificially cut pieces of 



* [The circumstance referred to was even more remarkable. Casks of 

 palm oil, part of the cargo of the ship wrecked near Cape Lopez, were con- 

 veyed by the current to Finmarken, and stranded near the North Cape. Vide 

 Editor's note in the English translation of "Cosmos," vol. i. p. xcvii.] Tr. 



