302 On the Influence of the Gulf Stream, 



the diurnal rotation of our earth is attributed the great equatorial 

 current, which traverses the Pacific in a vast stream nearl}'- 3,500 

 miles broad. Amongst the Asiatic Islands it is broken up, and a 

 part turns to the north-east, supplying the Aleutian Islanders v^^ith 

 timber drifted from China and Japan, while the main stream passes 

 on through the Indian Ocean, and finally round the Cape, and runs 

 northward into the Atlantic. This current travels at a mean rate of 

 ten or eleven miles in twenty-four hours ; but when forced through 

 narrow channels it acquires a much greater velocity.^ 



Passing inside the Lagullas bank, the current is continued along 

 the western coast of Africa in a northerly course until deflected by 

 the Guinea coast, when it strikes across the Atlantic, impinging on 

 the coast of South America, south of the Amazons, with whose waters 

 it unites, and flowing on into the Carribean Sea, it receives a vast 

 acceleration of temperature, and again departs on a mission to the 

 north as our Gulf- stream. 



To us the Gulf- stream must always be an object of extreme 

 interest. It brings us genial showers, borne by the south-westerly 

 winds from the surface of its warm and steaming waters. It carries 

 the temperature of summer, even in the dead of winter, as far north 

 as the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, and there maintains it in the 

 midst of the severest frosts. It is the presence of this warm water 

 and a cold atmosphere in juxtaposition which gives rise to the 

 ''silver-fogs " of Newfoundland, one of the most beautiful phenomena 

 to be seen anywhere among the treasures of the Frost-King. Every 

 west wind that blows crosses this stream on its way to Europe, and 

 carries with it a portion of this heat to temper there the northern 

 winds of winter.^ It is the influence of this stream upon the climate 

 that makes Erin the ''Emerald Isle of the Sea" — that clothes the 

 shores of Albion in evergreen robes, and encourages the Myrtle 

 and the Magnolia to flourish at Mount Edgcombe in the open air all 

 the year — which carries West Indian seeds to the Scottish isles, 

 wafts the floating pteropods of the tropics to the latitude of Iceland, 

 and renders the fauna of Spitzbergen richer than any other Arctic 

 realm. To the Gulf-stream we owe our greatness as a nation, and 

 that superiority of climate of which we have just spoken ; for if 

 the barrier of Panama were submerged, as it has been at a compara- 

 tively late geological time, the equatorial currents would flow on to 

 the Pacific, and the climate of England would become like that of 

 Newfoundland or Labrador, — if not colder.^ 



Nor is it merely with regard to their influence on the climate 

 of the Arctic and Ant-arctic regions that the equatorial current and 

 the Gulf-stream deserve our consideration ; for they must in all 

 ages have mainly influenced the migration of marine animals, and in 

 no small degree assisted in the distribution of land plants and 

 animals, probably playing an important part even in the dispersion 

 of man himself. 



1 Dr. S. P. Woodward, in " Critic," I860, No. 12. 



2 Maury, p. .56. 



=» Dr. S. P. Woodward, in " Critic," 1860, No. 10. 



