76 REPORT ON THE STATE CABINET. 



effects of these currents are scarcely felt in latitudes near the tropics. 

 The Gulf Stream, for example, which flows from the Gulf of Mexico, 

 deflects the isothermal line of 32° for the year, from latitude 55° where 

 it leaves the American continent, to 75° north in the North Atlantic, near 

 the island of Spitzbergen, and produces winters at the North Cape of 

 Norway, latitude 70°, no colder than our own ; so that the winters of Ice- 

 land are scarcely colder than Lombard}^. 



But inside of this Gulf Stream, along the Canada and New England 

 coast, there is a cold stream passing from the Polar sea towards the 

 equator. The seasons are perceptibly retarded, especially in the spring, 

 by this cold sea current along their coast. It gives rise also to those cold 

 northeast storms and winds which are so disagreeable through the spring 

 and early summer. These winds and storms are felt as far inland as 

 Central New York, and in some instances still farther. 



IV. Situation in Hefei^ence to 3Iountain Manges, etc. 



The fourth cause named as affecting temperature, is situation in refer- 

 ence to the great mountain ranges. 



The atmosphere presses upon the earth with a pressure of fifteen 

 pounds per square inch, or a weight equal to a stratum of water about 

 thirty feet deep. 



In consequence of the unequal distribution of heat and the rotation of 

 the earth on its axis, there is always a current called ^'- the polar current" 

 moving towards the equator, and another called ^^the return current,^'' mov- 

 ing in the opposite direction, or from the equator to the poles. Sometimes 

 the polar current is ^^the surface current" as it is called; that is, it blows 

 next to the surface of the earth, and the return current blows above it 

 in the other direction ; and at other times the order is reversed, and we 

 can always distinguish them by two signs : (1) The return current blows 

 in the northern hemisphere from a southerly direction ; and (2) is warmer 

 than the polar current, which blows from a northerly direction. 



Now, when either of these winds, as surface current, meets with a 

 mountain range or other obstruction of the kind, it does as a stream of 

 water would, turn around it, if it be higher than the upper surface of the 

 wind. Take, for example, the Alps, and in fact the great Eastern range 

 extending from the Atlantic coast as Pyrennees and reaching the Pacific 

 coast as Altai. Starting from the Atlantic coast at latitude about 40°, 

 it stretches across the continent with but few gaps, and reaches the 

 Pacific coast at latitude nearly 60°; and thus it is in just the latitude where 



