250 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 12, 1911. 
Europe is, however, mitigated by the presence 
of the Gulf stream, which is described by Ad¬ 
miral Maury, of the American Navy, as "a river 
in the ocean, with a current more rapid than 
that of the Mississippi or the Amazon, and more 
than a thousand times as great in volume. When 
passing south of Florida it is thirty-two miles 
wide and 370 fathoms deep.” 
It proceeds in a northeast direction, melting 
the icebergs met with on the south of New¬ 
foundland, and gradually widening as it crosses 
the Atlantic. On the west coast of Norway it 
prevents all the harbors, ox fiords, south of the 
North Cape from being frozen in the winter. 
Bayard Taylor, an American gentleman, who 
traveled through Scandinavia in 1857, wrote re¬ 
specting the coast north of 70° latitude: “On 
the southern side of the fiord many of the 
mountains are clothed with birch and fir to the 
height of 1,000 feet. The valleys produce in 
good seasons tolerable crops of potatoes, barley, 
and buckwheat. In the valley of the Alten River 
the Scotch fir sometimes reaches a height of 
seventy or eighty feet.” 
We shall comprehend how greatly the Gulf 
stream modifies climate by contrasting this with 
the opposite side of the Atlantic where, on the 
east coast of Greenland, in latitude io° further 
south, nothing grows larger than a juniper bush 
or a willow or birch a few inches high. The 
Gulf stream, after passing Norway, flows in a 
northeasterly direction, melting a bay-shaped 
space in the great barrier of ice beyond 75 0 lati¬ 
tude, and passing under the ice forms the tracts 
of open water north of Siberia, called by the 
Russians Polynia. On the east coast of Asia 
there is another warm current corresponding to 
the Gulf stream, but not so large. It passes 
through the straits of Malacca and the channels 
between the Philippine Islands, then in a north¬ 
easterly direction past China and Japan, till it 
reaches Bering Straits. These being narrow and 
shallow allow only a very small portion of the 
current to enter the icy sea, the main body of 
the water being turned southward along the 
American coast. 
It is evident that if the land on each side of 
Bering Straits were to sink deeply under the 
sea, this mass of warm water would flow into 
the Arctic ocean, and being deflected to the east 
by Kobbett's Land, wouid sweep along the north 
coast of the American continent. 
The effect of this in conjunction with the Gulf 
stream flowing past the north coasts of Europe 
and Asia would be to melt the great mass of 
the, at present, permanent ice, or sweep it into 
the Atlantic ocean. The warm stream flowing 
toward Bering Straits being relieved from the 
pressure now retarding its advance, would flow 
certainly with increased rapidity and probably in 
greater volume than it does at present. 
In a short time there would be scarcely any 
ice in the Arctic ocean except some that would 
be confined among the islands north of the Hud¬ 
son’s Bay territory, and the climate of the whole 
Northern Hemisphere would become so mild 
that the fruits and vegetables of the temperate 
zone would grow on the most northern shores. 
There can be no doubt but that this was the 
case when mammoths reigned in Siberia and 
mastodons in America, and it can easily be seen 
how the change to the present condition of those 
countries could have been produced. 
When from the effects of earthquakes a great 
extent of coast land sinks beneath the sea, it 
often happens that a great extent near it is up- 
heaved above the water, as occurred in Java a 
few years ago. In this way the land on both 
sides of Bering Straits was suddenly raised 
so high as to stop the warm ocean current pre¬ 
viously flowing through, while the north of 
Siberia sank until the tops of the hills formed 
the New Siberian Islands. 
The mammoths and the other species of ani¬ 
mals with which the land was covered were 
drowned in millions, but multitudes of various 
kinds swam for refuge to the hills. The mam¬ 
moths, being the largest and heaviest, pushed 
the others into deep water, and as the land con¬ 
tinued sinking for one or two days, as it usually 
does during earthquakes, great numbers of the 
mammoths themselves which were on the lower 
parts of the hills were drowned. Their flesh 
was eaten by crustaceans and fish, their bones 
remaining to be cast up as they now are during 
long continued gales of wind. 
Those upon the hills died of starvation, and 
their skeletons, after being picked clean by sea 
fowl, were covered by the earth which rain and 
melted snow washed over them. This accounts 
for some parts of the islands being formed 
chiefly of bones and tusks. 
The earthquake must have occurred in the 
depth of winter, and the Arctic ocean, being 
filled with warm water which required many 
months to cool, gave off immense volumes of 
vapor which were condensed into snow, falling 
in quantities never seen in the present day. 
The mammoths doubtless trampled this down 
at first, as moose now do, and subsisted upon 
the trees within reach, but the snow soon be- 
J IMMIE deserves all the credit of it. It was 
his colossal nerve and his- persuasive 
tongue that brought it all to pass. Jimmie 
is a choir-boy, but he really is not the angel 
that his doting mother thinks. He is a typical 
city boy, and until Louis and I took him in 
hand he had never seen a mountain. His idea 
of outdoor life is that led at Newport, where he 
has spent part of his summers. But to his 
credit be it said, he has had a hankering after 
the better sort, and has always proved a good 
and credulous listener. 
Of course, his parents objected; they were 
afraid of the bears, or that we would get lost, 
for we had told them in an unguarded moment 
that we were going to cut right across country, 
traveling by map and compass where there were 
no roads. Louis made a very proper objection, 
too; if the boy had never seen a mountain, what 
guarantee had we that he would not faint by 
the way when it came to toting his duffle up 
hill? But I had watched him with the other 
boys, and felt safe. 
Memorial Day came on a Thursday; so on 
Wednesday afternoon we foregathered with our 
packs and took our shrinking way through the 
curious crowd to the railway station. 
came deep enough to bury them. The wind must 
have blown from the north over Siberia and 
away from America, so that there was no snow 
to bury the mastodons and mammoths on that 
continent. Probably they died gradually from 
starvation, due to the increased cold stopping 
the growth of the trees upon which they were 
accustomed to browse. If a few escaped south¬ 
ward, they would be So weakened by hunger as 
to fall an easy prey to savages. 
The melting of the snow in Siberia when sum¬ 
mer returned caused very great floods, washing 
masses of gravel and mud over the snow-covered 
mammoths. Years must have elapsed before all 
which had accumulated in the great forests was 
melted, and therefore floods, gradually decreas¬ 
ing in volume, came annually from the southern 
districts, carrying earth over the ice which had 
not yet melted in the north. This explains 
the presence of alternate layers of ice and 
earth in the parts where the mammoths are 
found. 
The Arctic ocean had lost its warm current, 
and the ice which formed every winter was, to 
a great* extent, landlocked. It, therefore, ac¬ 
cumulated more and more until the climate ac¬ 
quired its present severity. 
Considering the great advances made in civil 
engineering during the last 200 years, and the 
continually increasing help afforded by the in¬ 
vention of powerful explosives and new kinds 
of machinery, it seems quite possible that, if 
several nations combined in bearing the cost, 
means might be found in the not distant future 
to widen and deepen Bering straits, and thus re¬ 
store the whole of the Northern Hemisphere to 
its former fertility. 
As we got into the hills our fun began; 
Jimmie began to get interested to a degree that 
was exciting to the whole car-full. The aneroid 
was nearly worn out by his tapping finger as he 
took the readings. And it did seem as though 
the train was later than the average in reach¬ 
ing Phoenicia. But reach it we did, and we 
piled out. 
Louis and I, old guardsmen, wore our stuff 
in blanket rolls by preference; of course, the 
youngster had to do likewise, and khaki leggins 
and a rakish campaign hat that he had bor¬ 
rowed made him a small edition of our get-up, 
to the audible but embarrassing admiration of 
the station crowd. 
We had learned that part of the map pretty 
well in the train, so we started off at once up 
the pretty woodland valley without asking a 
lot of questions that perhaps would not have 
been very intelligently answered. Our inten¬ 
tion was to go as far as we could before dark, 
camp, and go over Slide Mountain on the fol¬ 
lowing day; but the valley was too settled for 
camping, and we decided to go to a house for 
a good night’s rest preparatory to a hard day. 
It was a perfect evening, pleasantly cool and 
wonderfully fragrant. The mountains closed us 
A Week-End in the Catskills 
By HERBERT WHEATON CONGDON 
