V 
INFLUENCE OF THE GULF STREAM UPON CLIMATES. 47 
CHAPTER IL 
INPLUENCE OF THE GULF STREAM UPON CLIMATES. 
An Illustration, ^ 60. — Best Fish in cold Water, 65. — -The Sea a Part of a grand Ma- 
chine, 67. — Influence of the Gulf Stream upon the Meteorology of the Sea: It is a 
" Weather Breeder," 69.^ — Dampness of Climate of England due to it, 70.~The Pole 
of Maximum Cold, 71.— Gales of the Gulf Stream, 72. — The Wreck of the San 
Francisco, 73. — Influence of the Gulf Stream upon Commerce and Navigation : Used 
as a Land-mark, 77. — The first Description of it, 78. — Thermal Navigation, 81. 
60. Modern ingenuity has suggested a beautiful mode of warm- 
ing houses in winter. It is done by means of hot water. The 
furnace and the caldron are sometimes placed at a distance from 
the apartments to be warmed. It is so at the Observatory. In 
this case, pipes are used to conduct the heated water from the 
caldron under the superintendent's dwelling over into one of the 
basement rooms of the Observatory, a distance of one hundred 
feet. These pipes are then flared out so as to present a large cool- 
ing surface ; after which they are united into one again, through 
which the water, being now cooled, returns of its own accord to 
the caldron. Thus cooL water is returning all the time and flow- 
ing in at the bottom of the caldron, while hot water is continually 
flowing out at the top. 
The ventilation of the Observatory is so arranged that the cii\ 
culation of the atmosphere through it is led from this basemem 
room, where the pipes are, to all other parts of the building ; and 
in the process of this circulation, the warmth conveyed by the 
water to the basement is taken thence by the air and distributed 
over all the rooms. Now, to compare small things with great, we 
have, in the warm waters which are confined in the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, just such a heating apparatus for Great Britain, the North 
Atlantic, and Western Europe. 
The furnace is the torrid zone ; the Mexican Gulf and Carib- 
bean Sea are the caldrons ; the Gulf Stream is the conducting pipe. 
From the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to the shores of Eu- 
rope is the basement — the hot-air chamber— in which this pipe is 
