58 COURSE OF THE GULF STREAM. 



freshing rain or dew. Having fertilized the fields, 

 it flows back to its parent ocean, laden with a 

 superabundant cargo of earthy substances, which it 

 soon parts with in exchange for salt. And thus on it 

 goes, round and round the world ; down in the ocean's 

 depths, up in the cloudy sky, deep in the springs of 

 earth; ever moving, ever active, never lost, and 

 always fufilling the end for which it was created. 



All ocean currents are composed of water in one 

 or other of the conditions just described; the hot 

 and salt waters of the equator, flowing north to be 

 cooled and freshened ; the cold and fresh waters of 

 the north, flowing south to be heated and salted. 

 The Gulf Stream is simply the stream of equatorial 

 hot water that flows towards the pole through the 

 Atlantic. Its fountain-head is the region of the 

 equator, not the Gulf of Mexico ; but it is carried, 

 by the conformation of the land, into that gulf and 

 deflected by it, and from it out into the ocean in the 

 direction of Europe. This stream in the Atlantic 

 is well defined, owing to the comparative narrow- 

 ness of that sea. 



The Gulf Stream, then, is like a river of oil in the 

 ocean, it preserves its distinctive character for more 

 than three thousand miles. It flows towards the 

 polar regions, and the waters of those regions flow 

 in counter-currents towards the equator, because of 

 the fixed law that water must seek its equilibrium 

 as well as its level, thus keeping up a continuous 

 circulation of the hot waters towards the north and 



