TEE GULF STREAM. 
69 
One branch curves downward, and flits past the 
Azores, the other glides northward in the direction 
of the British Isles, and the Polar Sea. 
Its length, if reckoned from its Mexican head to 
the Azores, is upwards of 3000 miles, and its average 
velocity is about 40 miles a day. 
The great function of this stream is that of a 
bearer of heat, setting out at a temperature of 86°, 
losing not more than from 10° to 15° in its progress. 
It thus reaches our coast and ameliorates the climate, 
for in point of latitude England corresponds with 
Labrador. All are familiar with the fact that in 
the latter regions the winters are exceedingly severe 
and protracted, and the vegetation poor and stunted. 
Had our shores been without this warming influence, 
and the British Isles compelled to subsist on their 
own geographical allowance of heat, we should have 
been left in the same condition. 
We were within 100 miles of Long Island, when our 
course was shaped so as to pass south and west of the 
little George Bank, and so on to Halifax. In this run 
several dredgings and soundings were obtained in 
average depths of 1350 fathoms, the bottom yielding 
chiefly grey ooze, and the course of the Gulf Stream 
was again crossed. On the 8th May, when about 
90 miles south of Halifax, we sounded in 75 fathoms 
on Le Have Bank. On the morning of the 9th May, 
the outline of the coast of Nova Scotia was before us, 
and later in the day we entered between the head- 
