July, 1891. 
THE GULF STREAM. 
161 
months. When I was there last summer it was glorious hot 
summer weather, the thermometer being actually at 70° in 
the shade at midday ; and on the top of the North Gape at 
midnight the temperature was as high as 55°; although 
Greenland, which is opposite, in the same latitude, is simply 
one mass of snow-covered glacier. 
The special cause of this great cold in Greenland is 
another ocean stream, which is the counterpart of the Gulf 
Stream, namelv, the Arctic Current. As the Gulf Stream is 
constantly carrying so large a quantity of water into the 
Arctic Ocean, there must necessarily be some equivalent 
counterbalancing current flowing constantly in the opposite 
direction, as the general ocean surface cannot stand out of 
level; and this return current is the Arctic Current, which 
flows southward between Spitzbergen and Greenland, passing 
along the coast of Greenland, and washing the entire eastern 
coast of America from Newfoundland to Florida. The Gulf 
Stream and the Arctic Current are continuous with one 
another in consequence ; and the Gulf Stream is known to 
continue a considerable distance further in an easterly 
direction along the northern shore of Asia. 
The Arctic Current is an ice-cold stream at starting, and 
it has a remarkable cooling effect on the coast of America ; 
the opposite to the warming effect of the Gulf Stream on the 
coast of Norway. At New York, which is as far south as the 
latitude of Naples, the cold in winter is very severe ; and I met 
with an illustration of this in the public gardens of New York, 
where, in digging down at the end of April, frozen ground 
was met with at a depth of six feet below the surface. 
The contrast between the warm Gulf Stream and the cold 
Arctic Current was strikingly experienced in sailing across to 
New York at the end of April; we were for two days passing 
through the Gulf Stream on account of crossing its direction 
obliquely, and the morning’s bath of sea water, fresh circu¬ 
lating from the outside, was quite disagreeably warm for the 
two days; but then the next day the water was quite cold 
and chilly. The line of division between the warm and cold 
currents, flowing in opposite directions, is very definitely 
marked and sudden, and is spoken of as the cold wall 
boundary. The eastern edge of the Gulf Stream is not 
sharply defined, and there is an offshoot from it which turns 
down southwards by the Azores Isles, and is considered to 
return towards the Gulf of Mexico, making an entire circle 
in its course. 
At the point of close contact of the two streams, hot and 
cold, past the projecting coast of Newfoundland, the meeting 
