THE OCEAN AS THE RESERVOIR OF HEALTH 17 



they draw, as it were, the immense wind system of the 

 Pacific over the continent, and thereby keep it aerated. 

 But with that at present we have no concern, we have 

 only to remember the work of the Atlantic for Northern 

 America. Farther south the North-East Trades, plough- 

 ing across the wide expanse of the Atlantic, strike the 

 extreme south of the United States, and recurve along 

 its shores in company with the great current of the 

 Gulf Stream. But in the nature of things these winds 

 can have but little effect upon the climate of the 

 Southern States, which indeed lie in a sort of eddy, 

 and are consequently insufficiently aerated, having 

 immense areas of swampy land in which malaria lurks, 

 deadly and miasmatic, only a short distance from the 

 coast. And yet Florida, Georgia, and Alabama con- 

 tain some of the choicest spots of the New World areas, 

 which are near enough to the coast to get the edge of 

 the recurving Atlantic winds and receive the benefits 

 which they bring. 



Coming farther south we find the Antilles, lying 

 like a range of fortresses clear in the fairway of the 

 Trade Wind and current, and, according to our theory 

 of the aerating qualities of the oceanic winds, they 

 should be among the chief sanitoria of the globe. Yet 

 we must sadly admit that this has by no means been 

 the case in actual experience. Let us for a moment 

 inquire why this can be, stating the pros and cons in 

 a purely impartial spirit, holding no brief for the West 

 Indies at all. The chain of the Antilles, a series of 

 peaks of submerged mountains, rising from terrific 

 depths of ocean, and only showing a trivial proportion 

 of their bulk above the ocean-surface, extend from 

 about ten degrees north of the equator to the limit of 



C 



