i, THE GULF STREAM. 29 



11. Moreover, while the Gulf Stream is running to the north 

 from its supposed elevated level at the south, there is a cold cur- 

 rent coming down from the north ; meeting the warm waters of 

 the Gulf midway the ocean, it divides itself, and runs by the side 

 of them right back into those very reservoirs at the south, to which 

 theory gives an elevation sufficient to send out entirely across the 

 Atlantic a jet of warm water said to be more than three thousand 

 times greater in volume than the Mississippi Kiver. This cm-rent 

 from Baffin's Bay has not only no trade-winds to give it a head, 

 but the prevailing winds are unfavorable to it, and for a great part 

 of the way it is below the surface, and far beyond the propelling 

 reach of any wind. And there is every reason to believe that this, 

 with other polar currents, is quite equal in volume to the Gulf 

 Stream. Are they not the effects of like causes ? If so, what 

 have the trade-winds to do with the one more than the other ? 



12. It is a custom often practiced by seafaring people to throw 

 a bottle overboard, with a paper, stating the time and place at 

 which it is done. In the absence of other information as to cur- 

 rents, that afforded by these mute little navigators is of great 

 value. They leave no tracks behind them, it is true, and their 

 routes can not be ascertained. But knowing where they were 

 cast, and seeing where they are found, some idea may be formed 

 as to their course. Straight lines may at least be drawn, show- 

 ing the shortest distance from the beginning to the end of their 

 voyage, with the time elapsed. Admiral Beechey, R. N., lias pre- 

 pared a chart, representing, in this way, the tracks of more than 

 one hundred bottles. From it, it appears that the waters from 

 every quarter of the Atlantic tend toward the Gulf of Mexico and 

 its stream. Bottles cast into the sea midway between the Old 

 and the New Worlds, near the coasts of Europe, Africa, and Amer- 

 ica, at the extreme north or farthest south, have been found either 

 in the West Indies, on the British Isles, or within the well-known 

 range of Gulf Stream waters. 



Of two cast out together in south latitude on the coast of Africa, 

 one was found on the island of Trinidad ; the other on Guernsey, 

 in the English Channel. In the absence of positive information 

 on the subject, the circumstantial evidence that the latter per- 



