OCEANIC CIRCULATION. 22$ 



explorer, quoted with approval by the Edinburgh Ke- 

 viewer. The latter having repeated from ' Lothair ' " a 

 sneer at the shallow nonsense which has been talked 

 about the Gulf Stream, and at the exaggerated esti- 

 mates of its potency which have been put forward by 

 men (as well as women) who ought to have known 

 better " (these are the reviewer's words, not Mr. Dis- 

 raeli's), proceeds as follows : ' As Dr. Hayes truly re- 

 marks, " Weather predictors without end have launched 

 upon it their stupidities ; meteorologists have deluged 

 the world (sic) with their assumptions -respecting it ; 

 theorists of all kinds have floated their notions upon it. 

 One whirls it away into the arctic regions, and opens a 

 passage to the pole with it ; another compels it to give 

 a climate to countries where otherwise there would be 

 no climate worth mentioning ; while still another spins 

 it round the Atlantic Ocean, and its wide-spread arms 

 close upon a stagnant sea. . . . Through means 

 such as these mankind has come to look upon the Gulf 

 Stream with a certain degree of awe. It is a * breeder 

 of storms ' ; the giver of heat ; it might become the 

 father of pestilence. Will it always continue to do its 

 duty as hitherto ? or will it start off suddenly with some 

 new fancy, and pursuing some new course, upset the 

 physical and moral status of the world ? " 



Now we have seen that the writer who thus endorses 



Dr. Hayes' diatribe, is among those who hold that a 



southern offset from the Gulf Stream circles round 



the Sargasso Sea to join the Guinea current. He says 



farther on that he ' entirely accords ' with the opinion 



