OCEANUS 5 



time, as we count it, began. Just what upheaval set the Ocean 

 River on its course we do not know, but we do know what 

 holds it in its present rhythm, and we are beginning to find 

 out how dependent on this stream the peoples of the Atlantic 

 community are for their climate, their food, and the directions 

 of their development. 



Two of the first questions that come to mind are, why is this 

 stream not soon dissipated into the vast Atlantic waters; and 

 what gives it propulsion? Streams as we landlubbers know 

 them run downhill between banks. There is not enough down- 

 hill in the ocean, except in a few places, to account for the 

 entire course and powerful drive of the Ocean River, which 

 equals about a thousand times the flood of the Mississippi. 

 There is a power that stirs the whole North Atlantic ocean in 

 a clockwise swirl, with the Sargasso Sea at its center teeming 

 with weed and the special life of its own slow-moving waters. 

 The sun, of course, keeps this wheel of ocean spinning, using 

 as a machine for the discharge of its energy the constant effects 

 of wind and climate and the present fixed conformations of 

 continents and ocean bottom. Under these circumstances the 

 waters of the Great River start on their long journey with a 

 temperature, a density, a salinity, and a pace that creates an 

 entity within the vast surrounding ocean. 



We begin to see the measure of the Ocean River, its reach 

 and its constant current carrying the warm tropic waters to 

 the far north. This giant engine, created by climate, distrib- 

 utes and controls climate far from its source. The ocean has 

 well been called a climate in storage, meaning simply that by 

 the nature of salt water it acts as a reservoir of heat energy. 

 But the constituent nature of the sea, the life-giving proper- 

 ties of salt water, are as important to the life cycle of the 

 Atlantic world and its bordering continents as the size or 

 power of the Stream as an engine of climate. 



