V 
244 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
CHAPTER XV. 
THE DRIFT OF THE SEA. 
Object of Plate IX., ^ 528. — The Eastern Edge of the Gulf Stream ' sometimes visi- 
ble, 529.— The Polar Drift about Cape Horn, 533.— How the Polar Waters drift 
into the South Atlantic, and force the Equatorial aside, 535.— How this is accom- 
plished, 537. — A Harbor in a Bend of the Gulf Stream for Icebergs, 539. — Why 
Icebergs are not found in the North Pacific, 540. — The Womb of the Sea, 541. — 
Drift of warm Waters out of the Indian Ocean, 543. — A Suggestion from Lieu- 
tenant Jansen, of the Dutch Navy, 544.— A Current of warm Water sixteen hund- 
red Miles wide, 545. — The Pulse of the Sea, 646. — How the Gulf Stream beats 
Time, 547. — The Circulation of the Sea likened to that of the Blood, 548. — The 
Fish : Number of Vessels engaged in the Fisheries of the Sea, 551.— The Sperm 
Whale delights in warm Water, 552. — The Torrid Zone impassable to the Right 
Whale, 553. 
526. There is a movement of the waters of the ocean which, 
though it be a translation, yet does not amount to what is known 
to the mariner as current, for our nautical instruments and the art 
of navigation have not been brought to that state of perfection 
which will enable navigators generally to detect as currents the 
flow to which I allude as drift. 
527. If we imagine an object to be set adrift in the ocean at the 
equator, and if we suppose that it be of such a nature that it would 
obey only the influence of sea water, and not of the winds, this 
object, I imagine, would, in the course of time, find its way to the 
icy barriers about the poles, and again back among the tepid wa- 
ters of the tropics. Such an object would illustrate the drift of 
the sea, and by its course would indicate the route which the sur- 
face waters of the sea follow in their general channels of circula- 
tion to and fro between the equator and the poles. 
528. The object of Plate IX., therefore, is to illustrate, as far 
as the present state of my researches enables me to do, the cir- 
culation of the ocean, as influenced by heat and cold, and to in- 
dicate the routes by which the overheated waters of the torrid 
zone escape to cooler regions, on one hand, and on the other, the 
great channel ways through which the same waters, after having 
