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Ch. xil] 



THE TEMPERATURE OF WEST OE EUROPE. 



245 



the 



south ; and there can be no doubt that the general 

 cnmate of parts of Europe and America is materially affected 



by this cause. 



Principal J. D. Forbes has calculated that the quantity of 



heat thrown into the Atlantic Ocean by the Gulf-stream on 



a winter's day, would raise the temperature of the atmo- 



om 



freezing point to summer's heat.* Scoresby remarked that 



the 79 



stream 

 N. latitude, and that the g^ 



all the valleys of that island are cut off abruptly at the 

 beach by the remnant of heat which the ocean still derives 



from this source. 



Dr. Petermann has deduced from a careful study of the 

 observations made by arctic voyagers that the warm water 



om 



the 



sea of Spitzbergen, along the coast of 



Siberia to an open sea near the pole. 



In Baffin's Bay, on the west coast of Greenland, where the 

 temperature of the sea is not mitigated by the same cause, 



■j irom 1 

 masses 



t 



The number and dimensions of these bergs is pro- 



Capt. Sir John Ross saw several of them together 



in Baffin's Bay aground in water 1,500 feet deep! Many 



digious . 



accumu 



lating there, diffuse excessive cold over the neighbouring 

 continent ; so that Captain Franklin reports, that at the 

 mouth of Hayes' River, which lies in the same latitude as 

 the north of Prussia or the south of Scotland, ice is found 



everywhere in digging wells, 



summer, at the depth of 



four feet ! It is a well-known fact that every four or five 

 years a large number of icebergs, floating from Greenland, 

 are stranded on the west coast of Iceland. The inhabitants 

 are then aware that their crops of hay will fail, in con- 

 sequence of fogs which are generated almost incessantly; 

 and the dearth of food is not confined to the land, for the 



* Travels in Norway, p. 202. 

 t Scoresby's Arctic Regions, vol. i. 

 p. 208. — Dr. Latta's Observations on the 



Glaciers of Spitzbergen, &c. Edin. 

 New Phil. Journ. vol. Hi. p. 97. 



