INFLUENCE OF THE GULF STREAM UPON CLIMATES. 
49 
and that clothes the shores of Albion in evergreen robes ; while in 
the same latitude, on this side, the coasts of Labrador are fast bound 
in fetters of ice. In a valuable paper on currents,* Mr. Redfield 
states, that in 1831 the harbor of St. John's, Newfoundland, was 
closed with ice as late as the month of June ; yet who ever heard 
of the port of Liverpool, on the other side, though 2° further north, 
being closed with ice, even in the dead of winter ? 
63. The Thermal Chart (Plate IV.) shows this. The isother- 
mal lines of 60°, 50°, &c., starting off from the parallel of 40° 
near the coasts of the United States, run off in a northeastwardly 
direction, showing the same oceanic temperature on the Euro- 
pean side of the Atlantic in latitude 55° or 60°, that we have on 
the western side in latitude 40°, Scott, in one of his beautiful 
novels, tells us that the ponds in the Orkneys (latitude near 60°), 
are not frozen in winter. The people there owe their soft climate 
to this grand heating apparatus, for drift-wood from the West In- 
dies is occasionally cast ashore there by the Gulf Stream. 
64. Nor do the beneficial influences of this stream upon climate 
end here. The West Indian Archipelago is encompassed on one 
side by its chain of islands, and on the other by the Cordilleras of 
the Andes contracting with the Isthmus of Darien, and stretching 
themselves out over the plains of Central America and Mexico. 
Beginning on the summit of this range, we leave the regions of 
perpetual snow, and descend first into the tierra templada, and 
then into the tierra caliente, or burning land. Descending still 
lower, we reach both the level an<i the surface of the Mexican 
seas, where, were it not for this beautiful and benign system of 
aqueous circulation, the peculiar features of the surrounding coun- 
try assure us we should have the hottest, if not the most pestilen- 
tial climate in the world. As the waters in these two caldrons 
become heated, thej are borne off by the Gulf Stream, and are 
replaced by cooler currents through the Caribbean Sea ; the sur- 
face water, as it enters here, being 3° or 4°, and that in depth 40° t 
cooler than when it escapes from the Gulf. Taking only this dif- 
* American Journal of Science, vol. xlv., p. 293. 
t Temperature of the Caribbean Sea (from the journals of Mr. Dunsterville) : 
Surface temperature, 83° September ; 84° July ; 83°-86i° Mosquito Coast. 
Temperature in depth, 48°, 240 fathoms ; 43°, 386 fathoms ; 42°, 450 fathoms ; 
43°, 500 fathoms. 
D 
