THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 29 



France. This is known as the Sargasso Sea, from the surface 

 being covered with a sea-weed called the Sargassum natans. So 

 thick is the covering of weeds that at a little distance it seems 

 solid enough to walk upon. The discovery of the bodies of 

 strange animals and unknown trees and plants flung ashore at 

 the Azores suggested to Columbus the idea that there was land 

 lying beyond the western ocean ; so that to the Gulf Stream we 

 are indebted for the discovery of the New World. Bottles have 

 been thrown overboard at various points in the Gulf Stream, 

 containing the date and position of the ship. Many of these 

 have been picked up. From these it appears that the stream 

 takes eight months to flow from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores 

 of Europe, and the broader and slower current takes a year to 

 travel from the Bay of Biscay back to the gulf of Mexico. 



The Gulf Stream, though the best known, and in many 

 respects the most remarkable of the great equatorial currents, is 

 by no means the largest. The great current of the Pacific and 

 Indian Oceans may be regarded as one mighty stream flowing 

 from east to west. It crosses the Pacific in a sheet; neariy 3,500 

 miles broad, spreading over almost half the distance from pole 

 to pole ; another great current originates in the Indian Ocean, 

 flows ?.nto the China Sea through the Straits of Malacca, thence 

 into the North Pacific, between the coast of Asia and the Philip- 

 pine Islands, thence crosses the ocean by the north-westward, 

 modifying the climate of the Pacific coast and Alaska. It is 

 stated by Lieutenant Schwatka, of the U. S. A., who explored 

 the Yukon Eiver in 1883, that the Aleutian Islands have a climate 

 the mean temperature of which is 60, and that this spring 

 warmth is almost perpetual, there being only the slightest 

 difference between the extreme seasons. This statement, how- 

 ever, I have found no where corroborated, but, on the other hand, 

 openly disputed by the seal and whale fishers of Behrings Strait, 

 who frequently go ashore on the Aleutian Isles. However, 

 Schwatka may have referred to some particular island of the 

 group that was specially sheltered, or perhaps abnormally heated 

 by volcanic influence. 



