160 
THE GULF STREAM. 
July, 1891. 
raising the winter temperature, making a mild winter climate 
along the western shore of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
A still more remarkable effect, however, is produced on 
the further coast of Norway, where the Gulf Stream impinges 
direct upon the coast, and is deflected by it northwards until it 
passes the North Cape into the Arctic Ocean. The full effect 
produced in change of temperature is strikingly illustrated by 
the remarkable displacement effected in the curve of 32° mean 
temperature ; or the line passing through the different places 
where the average annual temperature is the freezing point, 
the cold in winter falling on the average as much below the 
freezing point as the heat in summer rises above it. If there 
were no disturbing cause, this line would be a circle parallel 
to the Arctic Circle, at about 50 miles’ distance southwards 
from the Arctic Circle ; but instead of this the line is indented 
by the action of the Gulf Stream, past the North Cape, to a 
distance as much as 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle, 
although at the two middle points of the continents of 
Asia and America the line is carried 1000 miles south of the 
Arctic Circle. 
The enormous warming power of the Gulf Stream will be 
better realised when it is considered that there is a constant 
stream of heated water, 800 miles in width and not far from 
a quarter-mile in thickness, that is being continuously cooled 
down from an average temperature of about 50° to the 
freezing point in passing from opposite the British Isles to 
some distance beyond the North Cape. The effect of the 
continuous liberation of this enormous amount of heat is 
such as to completely change the climate of the coast of 
Norway, as well as greatly affecting the climate of the western 
coast of the British Isles. 
Notwithstanding the high northern latitude of Norway— 
Bergen, the present capital, being in the same latitude as St. 
Petersburg ; Trondhjem, the ancient capital, in the same 
latitude as Iceland ; and the North Cape so far within the 
Arctic Circle as to be in the same latitude as the ice-bound 
North-West nassage along the northern coast of America—the 
whole coast of Norway, even on to the North Cape, enjoys so 
mild a climate that the harbours are not frozen even in the 
depth of winter, and a luxuriant vegetation is found with 
abundant flowering plants even on the top of the North 
Cape itself. 
At Hammerfest, which is the most northern town in the 
world, and within half a day’s sail of the North Cape, the 
harbour is not frozen even in the long winter, when the sun 
is altogether lost sight of for a period of two and a half 
