6 



CHARTING THE RIVER 



IT IS perfectly logical to speak of the Atlantic Ocean as the 

 greatest river in the world. It forms a gigantic pool, with the 

 Sargasso Sea roughly in the center, around which seventy-five 

 million tons of water per second is transported in clockwise 

 fashion. This cold mathematical statistic hides many mean- 

 ings. The daily flow of the River is nearly one thousand times 

 as great as the Mississippi in flood. Even more important than 

 its size, however, is its function. The circulation of this vast 

 river of warm tropical waters, linked as it is with the North 

 Atlantic climate, has affected both the history and the present 

 pattern of western civilization. Life-giving heat equivalent to 

 the absorption of three million square miles of ocean surface 

 at the equator is carried in constant battle against the en- 

 croachment of Arctic waters upon northern Europe. 



In his report on the Gulf Stream, written in 1890, Lieu- 

 tenant John Elliott Pillsbury, of the U. S. Navy, the first to 

 carry out an intensive scientific investigation on this portion 

 of the Ocean River, says: ''Man stands with bowed head in the 

 presence of nature's visible grandeurs, such as towering moun- 

 tains, precipices, or icebergs, forests of immense trees, grand 

 rivers, or waterfalls. He realizes the force of waves that can 

 sweep away lighthouses or toss an ocean steamer about like a 

 cork. In a vessel floating on the Gulf Stream one sees nothing 



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