CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 31 



The Gulf Stream thus described by the American savant issues from 

 the Florida Channel, with a breadth of thirty-four miles, and a depth 

 of two thousand two hundred feet, moving at the rate of four and a 

 half miles per hour. The temperature of the water in the vicinity is 

 about thirty degrees Cent. From the American coast the current takes 

 a north-east direction towards Spitzbergen, its velocity and volume 

 diminishing as it expands in breadth. Towards the forty-third degree of 

 latitude it forms two branches, one of which strikes the coast of Ireland 

 and of Norway, whither it frequently transports seeds of tropical origin : 

 it also warms the frozen waters of the glacial sea. The other branch, 

 inclining towards the south, not far from the Azores, visits the coast 

 of Africa, whence it returns to the Antilles. Throughout this vast 

 circuit may be seen all sorts of plants and driftwood, with waifs and 

 strays of every description borne on the bosom of the ocean. " Mid- 

 way the Atlantic, in the triangular space between the Azores, Cana- 

 ries, and Cape de Verd Islands, is the great Sargasso Sea, covering an 

 area equal in extent to the Mississippi Valley : it is so thickly matted 

 over with the Gulf Weed (Sargassum laceiferum), that the speed of 

 vessels passing through it is actually retarded, and to the companions 

 of Columbus it seemed to mark the limits of navigation ; they be- 

 came alarmed. To the eye at a little distance it seemed sufficiently 

 substantial to walk upon." These moving vegetable masses, always 

 green, which tail off to a steady breeze, serving as an anemometer 

 to the mariner, afford an asylum to multitudes of mollusks and 

 crustaceans. 



The Gulf Stream plays a grand part in the Atlantic system. It 

 carries the tepid water of the equinoctial regions into the high latitudes ; 

 beyond the fortieth parallel the temperature is sixteen degrees Cent. 

 Urged by the south-west winds which predominate in that zone, its 

 tepid waters mix with those of the Northern Sea, softening the rigour 

 of the climate in these regions. To the south of the great bank of 

 Newfoundland, the warm current, in vast volume rushing from the 

 Florida Straits, meets the cold currents descending from the Arctic 

 Circle through Baffin's Bay and the Sea of Greenland, running with 

 equal velocity towards the south. A portion of these waters reascend 

 towards the Pole along the western coast of Greenland. It is to this 

 conflict of the polar and equatorial waters, that the formation of the 

 banks of Newfoundland is ascribed. Each of these great currents 



