368 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



"The Gulf Stream from Florida to Newfoundland is for the most part imhedded or stratified 

 upon a current which is setting in the opposite direction in its progress from the polar regions. 

 By this action the great stream of drift ice from the polar basin is brought within the desolving 

 influence of the Gulf Stream ; and the Grand Bank itself, perhaps, owes its origin to the deposits 

 which have resulted from this process during a long course of ages. The icebergs being carried 

 southward by the deeper polar current, their rapid destruction is here effected by the tepid water 

 of the Gulf Stream. These two streams of current, like other currents, both atmospheric and 

 aqueous, pursue each its determinate course, the Gulf Stream being thrown eastward by the 

 greater rotative velocity which it acquired in latitudes nearest the equator, and the polar current 

 being thrown westward along the shores and soundings of the American continent and its con- 

 tiguous ocean depths by the tardy rotation which it derived in higher latitudes. Were the 

 influence of winds wholly unfelt upon the ocean, it is probable that the same system would 

 still be maintained in all its essential features by the mechanical influence of the earth's rota- 

 tion, combined with an unstable state of equilibrium." 



And Lieutenant M. F. Maury, in a paper on the Gulf Stream and currents of the sea, read 

 before the National Institute April, 1844, says: "A geodetic examination as to the course of 

 the Gulf Stream does not render it by any means certain that it is turned aside by the Grand 

 Banks of Newfoundland at all, but that in its route from the coasts of Georgia as far towards 

 the shores of Europe as its path has been distinctly ascertained it describes the arc of a great 

 circle as nearly as may be. Following the line of direction given to it after clearing the straits 

 of Florida, its course would be nearly ou a great circle, passing through the poles of the earth. 

 That it should be turned from this, and forced along one inclining more to the east, requires 

 after it leaves these straits the presence of a new force to give it this eastward tendency. And 

 have we not precisely such a force in the rate at which different parallels perform their daily 

 rounds about their axis ? In consequence of this the stream, when it first enters the Atlantic 

 from the Gulf, is carried with the earth around its axis at a rate of two miles and a lalf a 

 minute faster towards the east than it is when it sweeps by the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. 

 " That this explanation as to its eastward tendency should hold good, a current setting from 

 the north towards the south should have a westward tendency, accordingly, and in obedience 

 to the propelling power derived from the rate at which different parallels are whirled around in 

 diurnal motion, we find the current from the north which meets the Gulf Stream on the Grand 

 Banks taking a southwesterly direction, as already described. It runs down to the tropics by 

 the side of the Gulf Stream, and stretches as far to the west as our shores will allow." 



That this theory of rotative influence may or may not be correct it is not my province to dis- 

 cuss, but I was forcibly struck with these coincidences of recurvation when the tracks of the 

 Gulf Stream and Kuro-Siwo, together with the paths of the hurricanes, were traced upon the 

 same chart ; and I have made these quotations to show what hypotheses are entertained by some 

 of the eminent men who have given much attention and study to the subject, and from a con- 

 viction that they are in some measure, at least, sustained by the results of our observations upon 

 the Kuro-Siwo ; for, notwithstanding the configuration of the eastern shores of the continent of 

 America and Asia are undoubtedly the original cause of the deflection to the northward of the 

 whole of the equatorial current of the Atlantic by the Gulf Stream, and of a portion of that of 

 the Pacific by the Kuro-Siwo, or Japan stream, yet were no influences, such as Mr. Kedfield 

 and Lieutenant Maury refer to, operating upon these streams, would not their natural inclina- 

 tion from the inertia of their westward flow be to hug the coast, and wash their whole length 



