On the Gulf Stream and Currents of the Sea. 161 



Art. XI. — Remarks on the Gulf Stream and Currents of the 

 Sea; by Lieut. M. F. Maury, U. S. N.* 



[Lieut. Maury introduces his paper by stating that he has no 

 intention of recapitulating the little that we know with regard to 

 the Gulf Stream, and of its currents ; sometimes conflicting — 

 sometimes colder and at other times warmer than the seas in 

 which they are found. 



That we should obtain a better knowl^ge of these currents 

 and of the laws that govern them, is equally interesting to the 

 navigator and to the philanthropist, and it is therefore recommen- 

 ded to the National Institute, " to devise and set on foot a plan 

 for multiplying observations and extending our information upon 

 these interesting phenomena." — Eds.] 



The shoals which endanger navigation off the capes of Car- 

 olina, appear to owe their existence entirely to currents. The 

 soundings and form of the Hatteras and other shoals, clearly in- 

 dicate that they are caused by a current from the north. A com- 

 parison of present charts with Jeffry's Atlas published in 1775, 

 shows not only that these shoals are increasing, but that the chain 

 of islands alluded to is in process of gradual formation. Curri- 

 tuck and Roanoke Inlets which are now sand bars, were once 

 navigable ; Ocrocoke Inlet had then seventeen feet of water ; it 

 now has eight. Besides these, there were, between Beaufort, N. 

 Carolina and Charleston S. Carolina, twenty five or thirty others, 

 many of them then navigable, and most of them now closed and 

 appearing only as dry land. 



Whence comes the sand that forms these islands ? Separated 

 from the main land by standing pools of water, moved only by 

 the tides from the ocean, it cannot be brought from the shore. 

 It can only be upheaved by geological agencies, with the general 

 elevation of the coast, or it is cast up from the bottom of the 

 ocean by the Gulf Stream and the waves, or brought down from 

 the north by the current on the coast. Investigation might set- 

 tle the question. If marine currents considered as physical agents, 

 are interesting to the geologist, they are far more so to the navi- 

 gator ; but their force, their fluctuations and their general laws 



"* Condensed from a paper read before the National Institute, Tuesday, April 

 2d, 1844. 



Vol. XLvn, No. 1.— April-June, 1844. 21 



