THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



257 



south-easterly from Davis's Straits, and more 

 southerly for those setting out of the Arctic basin, 

 through the interval between Greenland and Lap- 

 land. These Arctic currents thus converge towards 

 the European shores of the Atlantic, and produce 

 their effect just in proportion as their force is com- 

 bined, and that of the gulf stream lessened by 

 diminished velocity, as, also, by becoming expanded 

 and shallower. It is only by the continuance of 

 westerly and south-westerly winds that the warmer 

 surface-waters of the gulf stream are occasionally 

 carried forward and brought into contact with our 

 western shores, bearing with them the vegetable 

 products of the New World, together with the 

 Ianthince and S-pirulce of the open Atlantic, as 

 evidences of the course which the stream has taken. 



When the Atlantic was closed at its northern 

 extremity, there was no counteracting agency by 

 which the stream of the equatorial waters could have 

 been influenced, or their temperature reduced ; and 

 the constant flow of so large a volume of heated 

 water sweeping round into this closed sea, must 

 necessarily have imparted a great degree of warmth 

 to the whole of the North Atlantic Ocean, giving a 

 uniform and genial climate to its European border- 

 conditions, which would materially influence the 

 character of its fauna, whether terrestrial or marine. 



Such, I imagine, were the precise conditions 

 under which that early facies of our Atlantic marine 

 fauna, which is to be seen in the Faluns of Bor- 



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