02 
ME. H. N. DICKSON ON THE CIRCULATION OF THE 
computed (1.869) its velocity as inquiring one to two years to reach Europe from 
Florida, while, according to my computation, two months would suffice. 
4. To conclude from the soundings, obtained so far, the Gulf Stream must be, iqD to 
the Arctic Ocean, a deep and voluminous watercourse ; if it should not he so, the 
Polar ice would reach the European coasts.The Gulf Stream, in its 
course, is more powerful and steady than all the winds ; only the Polar ice and the 
Polar currents, in spring, and summer, exercise a great influence over it. The Polar 
Stream presses at three places against it; first from the north-west, east of New¬ 
foundland ; then from the north, east of Iceland; at both these places the Polar 
Stream is buried and proceeds beneath the Gulf Stream, after having pushed it off 
literally to the south-east. But for the third time, at Bear Island, the Pcfiar Stream 
conies directly against the Gulf Stream, from the north-east, splits it into two or 
tfiree branches, and in places even presses it beneath its own waters, at least in 
July .... 
5. These three conflicts with the Polar currents cause the summer (July) isothermal 
lines of the Gulf Stream to make deep cuts at the respective places, and to assume a 
certain concavity of form which will not he found in those of the winter (January). 
But even if the July curves, when compared with those of January, appear pressed 
l)ack somewhat to the south, they show, nevertheless, on the whole a very high 
temperature for the entire Atlantic basin.A great depression of the 
temperature of the surface is caused by the Polar Stream descending east of Iceland, 
and, after its collision with the Gulf Stream, proceeding beneath the latter, principally 
when reaching the shallow German Sea. It is evident that this Iwanch of the Polar 
Stream, and the winds blowing from it, are dejDressing also the summer temperature 
of a considerable part of Western Germany.It is pretty certain that a 
sub-surface Polar current reaches, in summer, from Iceland and Jan Mayen to the 
German coast, hut there have been so far hardly any inquiries made about it. 
G. In winter (January) the Gulf Stream is cut-into much less, The pressure of 
the Polar Stream at Newfoundland is hardly visible on the chart, the curves being 
simply parallel with the coasts ; east of Iceland a Polar Stream proceeding to the 
south-east cannot Ido inferred at all from the observations of the temjjerature of the 
sea at Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, Scotland, and Norway, which bear toward each 
other quite different relations in January and in July. The relations in winter 
between Bear Island and Spitsbergen are yet unexplored, hut we have known for a 
long time the grand effects of a relatively high-tempered sea up to Spitsbergen and 
Nova Zemhla.The Polar streams, in conformity with the general laws 
of nature, are less powerful in the winter than in the summer; the Polar ice does not 
drift as far southward.The Gulf Stream is in winter more powerful than 
in summer; while the Polar streams, so to say, set at rest in some measure, withdraw 
their ice and concentrate it round the land. 
7. The relations of the temperature of the Gulf Stream within themselves, are 
