Having Completely Encircled Australia,
It Enters The Indian Sea, Sweeps Up Round The Cape Of
Good Hope, And, Crossing The Atlantic, Twists Into The
Gulf Of Mexico.
Here its flagging energies are suddenly
accelerated in consequence of the narrow limits within
which it finds itself compressed.
So marvellous does
the velocity of the current now become, so complete its
isolation from the deep sea bed it traverses, that by
the time it issues again into the Atlantic, its hitherto
diffused and loitering waters are suddenly concentrated
into what Lieutenant Maury has happily called - "a river
in the ocean," swifter and of greater volume than either
the Mississippi or the Amazon. Surging forth between the
interstices of the Bahamas, that stretch like a weir
across its mouth, it cleaves asunder the Atlantic. So
distinct is its individuality, that one side of a vessel
will be scoured by its warm indigo-coloured water, while
the other is floating in the pale, stagnant, weed-encumbered
brine of the Mar de Sargasso of the Spaniards. It is not
only by colour, by its temperature, by its motion, that
this (Greek) "ron Okeanuio" is distinguished; its very
surface is arched upwards some way above the ordinary
sea-level toward the centre, by the lateral pressure of
the elastic liquid banks between which it flows. Impregnated
with the warmth of tropic climes, the Gulf Stream-as it
has now come to be called, - then pours its genial floods
across the North Atlantic, laving the western coasts of
Britain, Ireland, and Norway, and investing each shore
it strikes upon, with a climate far milder than that
enjoyed by other lands situated in the same latitudes.
Arrived abreast of the North Cape, the impetus of the
current is in a great measure exhausted.
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