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CHAPTER IV.
THE GULF STREAM—ITS NATURE—CAUSE—ILLUSTRATION—EFFECT OF SMALL POWERS UNITED—ADVENTURES OF A PARTICLE OF WATER—EFFECT OF GULF STREAM ON CLIMATE—ITS COURSE—INFLUENCE ON NAVIGATION—SARGASSO SEA—SCIENTIFIC EFFORTS OF PRESENT DAY—WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS—EFFECTS ON COMMERCE—CAUSE OF STORMS—INFLUENCE OF GULF STREAM ON MARINE ANIMALS.
F all the varied motions of the sea, the most important, perhaps, as well as the most wonderful, is the Gulf Stream. This mighty current has been likened by Maury to a “river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. It takes its rise in the Gulf of Mexico (hence its name), and empties into the arctic seas. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater.”
This great current is of the most beautiful indigo-blue colour as far out as the Carolina coasts; and its waters are so distinctly separated from those of the
