160 REPORT — 1869. 



herds to the highlands, and remain there from June to November. The wild 

 elephants migrate like the people, and for the same reason. On the 13th of July 

 the party marched from Kokai to Bedj uk in the Anseba Valley, and remained till 

 the 8 th of Augus, collecting specimens of animals which exist there in great numbers 

 and variety. Lions were numerous and very noisy, and two specimens were 

 obtained of a rhinoceros, allied to the H. bicomis of South Africa. In the valley 

 Christian tribes live on perfectly friendly terms with others who are Mohammedans 

 in religion. During their stay the weather was very pleasant, always tine in the 

 morning, with occasional showers in the afternoon. Owing to the continuance of 

 the rains they were unable to return down the valley, and made a detour to the 

 north from Kelamet through Rairo, and thence to Ain, and across the desert by 

 the direct route to Massowa. 



On a Recent Visit to the Suez Caned. By Captain C. Dodd. 



Notes on the Runn of Cutch. By Captain C. Dodd. 



On Extraordinary Agitations of the Sea. By E. Edmonds. 



On the Supposed Injluence of the Gulf-stream on the Climate of North- West 

 Europe. By A. G. Findlat, F.R.G.S. 



The author referred to a former communication to the British Association at 

 Liverpool in 185.3, where it was shown more clearly than had been before done, 

 that a continuous series of current-streams could be traced all over the globe, and 

 that by analogy these circulations extended from the surface to the bed of the 

 ocean, a process by which the universally uniform character of sea-water was 

 maintained. Our knowledge of deep-sea temperatures, and of the depth of the 

 ocean, was then comparatively limited, and the opinion that at tha,t time might be 

 entertained, that the Gulf-stream had sufficient depth and velocity to reach our 

 shores as a continuous stream of warm water, has been since proved to be falla- 

 cious. 



First, the volume of the Gulf-stream is very much less than was formerly believed. 

 We have now a tolerably exact knowledge of its dimensions as derived from the sur- 

 veys made in the summer months between 1855 and 1866, by the officers of the U.S. 

 Coast Survey. The term "Gulf-stream " is here confined to the current between the 

 Florida Strait and the Nantucket Banks, an excellent history of which was pub- 

 lished at Bremen in 1868 by M. Kohl. 



In estimating the volume of the stream theoretically we meet with a difficulty 

 at the outset. It is derived from an area of not less than 5,400,000 square miles of 

 the equatorial portion of the Atlantic, drifting westward at a rate of from fifteen to 

 twenty-two miles per day. The whole of this tropically-heated water is apparently 

 represented by the outlet of the comparatively puny Gulf-stream, not more than 

 1200 teet deep and less than one sixteen-hundredth part of the breadth of its parent 



source. . n . 



Its dimensions in the Strait of Florida have been ascertamed m sections, from 

 its entrance between the Dry Tortugas and the Havana, and its outlet on the Nan-ows 

 off Cape Florida. In the first section (1858) it is ninety-eight miles wide, but the 

 stream occupies only the southern moiety of the channel. Between the Sand Key and 

 Havana (1866) the distance is 82^ miles, of which the Gulf-stream occupies only 

 forty miles, and it was not more than 1200 feet deep, not reaching to the summit 

 of a submarine ridge discovered here, on the summit of which the temperature 

 was only 60° Fahr., while at the bottom it was only 45°. Passing over the other 

 sections", that of the Narrows between Cape Florida and the Bemini Isles was chosen 

 as an index of the whole. It was examined in 1855 by Commander Craven, U.S.N., 

 and proved to be the narrowest, and also the shalhiuest part of its course. The 

 maximum depth is only from 300 to 370 fathoms, and the temperature at the 



