Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1870-03-03
THE GULF STREAM.
cries Concerning the Ocean Wonder
THE Most Nortneriy Harbor I'm the
World Never Closed by Ice.
From the New York Tribune. Feb. IL.


THE Most Northerly Harbor I'm the
World Never Closed by Ice.
From the New York Tribune. Feb. IL.
The announcement that Prof. T. b.
Maury would lecture on the ''Gulf Stream,
before the Polytechnic Branch of the 4 uer-
lean Institute, attracted large audience
at their rooms in the Cooper Institute last
night. After the usual reading of scien-
tific items by Prof. Tilman, the speaker of
the evening was introduced With the aid
of several large charts and maps, he traced
the equatorial current Of the Atlantic from
the Western coast of Africa, and showed
how it formed the great commercial high
way known as the Gulf Stream. This cur
rent. he claimed, is more than 1000 times
larger in volume than the Mississippi river.
1t moves across the Atlantic on the track
of great circle of the earth. Combating
the prevailing notion that the shores and
banks of Newfoundland defect the current
from it's natural and normal path, evidence
was brought to show that it moved in ODE
dience 20 the diurnal rotation of the globe
on the one hand, and, on the other, that,
being of a different specific gravity from
the waters of the Polar Sea, it seeks to find
an equilibrium by changing places with
them.
The new positions were advanced by the
lecturer as to this mysterious flow of the
ocean. He denied that the usual easterly
curve of the Gulf stream las the maps give
it, by which il is made to sweep toward
the Azores and around to the shores of
Africa, have any existence. There Is a
current-an offshoot, spparently-rscur-
ring in this direction, bat it Is 9 mere
drift This, he explained, is caused by the
.sbrave west Winds" or, more properly,
southwest winds, which, he said, ''eyery-
where on the globe, north of the Tropic of
Cancer, are the same" The true Gulf
Stream, however, flows on in q mighty
and resistless course. Even as far north
as Hammerfest, IN Norway, the most
northerly town in the world; it makes its
genial and balmy influence se't. In 1881
the harbor of st. Johns. Newfoundland.
800 miles south of Hammerfest, had
been frozen up as late as the month Of
June. But the harbor of Hammerfest his
never been known to be closed by ice, even
in mid-winter.
Mr.. Maury advanced the idea also, that
the Gulf Stream il much more than Its
name purports. 1t Is not a mere stream
from the Gulf of Mexico, but volume
nearly as large as the great equatorial cur
rent itself Though the stream, as it comes
through the narrows of Florida, is thous-
and times as large as the Father OF
Waters" at New Orleans. il is afterward
reinforced by an immense shaving OF the
main equatorial current known as the North
west Branch. This body of water being Of
the same or nearly the same temperature
and gravity as the Gulf Stream proper
readily unites with it after the latter has
passed the Bahamas. The lecturer ther
read letter from Capt Slas Brent (the CO
workers of Commodore Perry in his Japar
expedition), whom he had consulted on The
views he entertained, and who. in q cleal
and concise statement, Endorsed his reas
oning.
If this be true, the lecturer said, thu
views now entertained by geographers o
the climatic power of the Gulf Stream mus
undergo serious revision, if not q decided
revolution. 1t would no longer be regard
ed as the comparatively small issue through
the Narrows of Bemini, but q stream NOR
than double as large, and one which wa
fully equal to the Office claimed for it, o
penetr ating the regions of the extrem
north, and breaking through the massiv
ice-walls which surround and guard tn
color and 'phosphorescent," features o
the Gulf Stream were described and e1
planned Prot. Maury compared the CRU
Stream to the Milky Way, because it
warm water at night was made by the my
Rad insects to glow and sparkle like a Sc
of fire.