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III. The Circulation of the Surface Waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. 
By H. N. Dicksox, B.Sc., Lecturer in Physical Geography in the University of 
Oxford. 
Communicated by Sir John Murray, K.C.B., F.R.S. 
Received March 23,—Read May 17, 1900. 
[Plates 1—4.] 
1 . 
The history of our knowledge of the currents of the North Atlantic Ocean up to the 
year 1870 has been written once for all by PetermANN (l), who in that year published 
a memoir maintaining, contrary to the opinion of Findlay, Blunt, and Carpenter, 
that eastern and northern extensions of the Gulf Stream were the prime factors in 
the circulation. Petermann subjected practically the whole of the material in tlie 
way of observations then extant to an exhaustive critical examination, and came to 
conclusions which are worth quoting, in the summary. Inasmuch as the observations 
of the twenty succeeding years did not seriously modify them :— 
1. The hot source and core of the Gulf Stream extends from the Strait of Florida, 
along the North American coast at all times .... up to the 37th degree of 
northern latitude. 
2. Under the 37th and 38th degree of latitude the hot core of the Gulf Stream 
turns away from the American coast toward the east beyond the meridian of 
Newfoundland and its banks to long. 40° W.Ph-om there it proceeds to 
the north-east, diffuses nearly across the entire Atlantic, and surrounds the whole 
of Europe, to the Arctic and the White Sea of Archangel, with a broad and permanent 
watercourse .... The south-west winds receive their high temperature from 
the Gulf Sti'eam ; and only through the Ocean, not by the winds, can warmth be 
carried into latitudes as high as those of the European coasts are. 
3. The Gulf Stream, as a whole, is as yet but little explored; we only know its 
influence in some degree. How limited our knowledge of it is may be inferred, for 
instance, from the fact that there are most contradictory statements of its velocity 
and strength. A. G. Findlay, one of the pi'incipal authorities on the Gulf Stream, 
11.3.1901 
