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Show THE GULF STREAM'S FLOW In an. article before us is a discussion of the influence in-fluence of the ocean on climate. The writer, of course, assumes that northwestern Europe tind the British Isles are warmed by the Gulf stream and the winds blowing from, the southwest. This is 'doubtless true, but the warmth comes from the winds blowing across the warm stream, which warms the nir currents, and not from the stream itself. "Without the winds the stream could not affect the land one mile from the shore. But the writer assumes as-sumes that the Gulf stream itself is caused by the winds that sweep northwest across; the Caribbean sea and Gulf of Mexico, which we do not believe at all, because if the waters were heaped up and driven northwest, as this writer asserts, it -would as it continued con-tinued its flow to the northeast, merge more and more with 'the "common waters of the. sea" and be lost. ' But the truth is that for more tUian 2000 miles it' holds its way and is as sharply defined as any river is between its banks, only the banks of the river are the waters of the ocean. A . thousand miles north of the source of the stream, a ship crossing it can trail its course and note its sharply defined banks as easily as one can note the flow of the Missouri Mis-souri at Omaha. Our belief is that the course of the Gulf stream and the other great ocean currents is as much unknown un-known as were the causes for and the circulation of blood in the human system 200 ycsirs ago. Without constant circulation the waters of the ocean would quickly become stale, so stale that it would soon destroy all animal life,, not only stvithin the waters, but upon the land as weJl. Hence, in the beginning, an all-wise Infinite . power establishes a circulating system for it. The rotaiy motion of the earth may have much to do with it, so may gravitation gravita-tion ; so may some great unknown generating power which works in the sea as do the nrrves of respiration respira-tion in the human body the great -circulating force of the ocean. The winds that blow above it and along its face doubtless cause variation in these currents, but they do not originate them and can but partially control them. ' ...... t The cause of ocean currents, -we look upon as oncof the unsolved problems of sciience, because no explanation of them up to date will, when applied to the facts, appeal to human, reason. The energy that starts a river Infinitely greater than the Amazon out of a warm ocean and keeps it in steady flow for 2000 miles, does -not come from vagrant winds. , ' |