CURRENTS OP THE OCEAN. 2$ 



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

 over with the Gulf Weed (Sargassum bacciferuni), 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 became 

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

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

 of a brownish green, which tail off to a steady breeze, serving as 

 an anemometer to the mariner, afford an asylum to multitudes of 

 molluscs 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 lati- 

 tudes ; beyond the fortieth parallel the temperature is 16 Centi- 

 grade. 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 

 re-ascend 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 having unceasingly deposited the debris carried in its bosom, 

 the bank has been thus formed bit by bit in the concourse of ages. 



The difference of temperature between the Gulf Stream and the 

 waters it traverses gives birth inevitably to tempests and cyclones. In 

 1780 a terrible storm ravaged the Antilles, in which 20,000 persons 

 perished. The ocean quitted its bed and inundated whole cities ; 

 the trunks of trees, mingled with other debris, were tossed into the 

 air. Numerous catastrophes of this kind have earned for the Gulf 

 Stream the title of the " King of the Tempests." In consequence of 

 the numerous nautical documents which have been placed at the 

 command of the National Observatory of Washington, and the 

 admirable use made of them by the late Naval Secretary and his 

 assistants, the directions and range of these cyclones engendered by 

 the Gulf Stream may be foreseen, and their most dangeroue ravages 

 turned aside. As an example of the utility of Dr. Maury's labours 

 in settling the direction of storms in the trajet of the Gulf Stream, 

 we quote a well-known instance : In the month of December, 1859, 

 the American packet San Francisco was employed as a transport to 

 convey a regiment to California. It was overtaken by one of these 

 sudden storms, which placed the ship and its freight in a most 



