CONTRASTS IX THE ATLANTIC— -E. AND W, 201 



temperature of this stream at Newfoundland lias 

 been found to be 7° C. (12°-6 F.) below that of 

 the air in May. It brings down in the spring 

 great masses of drift-ice, winch are carried from 

 the Polar Sea between Greenland and Spitsber- 

 gen, as well as from Baffin's Bay and the coasts 

 of Labrador, often nearly as far south as north 

 latitude 40°, and winch are not melted away till 

 they get into the gulf-stream. Vast masses of ice 

 attach themselves in winter to all the coasts of 

 North America as far south as 50° north latitude, 

 fill the great lakes, and hang about the coasts a 

 great part of the early summer ; while the oppo- 

 site coasts of Europe, washed as they are by com- 

 paratively warm sea-currents, remain in great part 

 free from ice, even during the winter. These 

 conditions are one chief cause of the great differ- 

 ence between the climates of the coasts of Europe, 

 and of the east of North America, under the same 

 latitudes. 



The equatorial stream is not supplied only by 

 under-currents ; that is, its waters are not drawn 

 from the depths of the sea alone. I have already 

 mentioned that a part of the gulf-stream, on 

 reaching the Azores takes a southern direction, 

 and turns down towards the African coast. A 

 similar southward movement of the ocean-water is 

 remarked between the coast of Portugal and the 

 Azores. It keeps close to the coast of Africa, 



