The Conservative. (M'connelsville, Ohio) 1866-1871, 1870-03-04
THE GULF STREAM.
Prof. maury Advances some New The
cries Concerning the Ocean
-The Most NOrtherIy HarbOr In b
WorId Meyer ClOsed BIZ Ice.

MHUT AUVUICO8 gUUIC INV ~
cries Concerning the Ocean Wonder
THE Most NOrtherIy HarbOr In the
World Never Closed by Ice.
From the New York Tribune. Feb. IL.
The announcement that Prof. T. B.
Maury would lecture on the 'fGulf Stream,
before the Polytechnic Branch of the Amer
lean Institute, attracted a large audience
at their rooms in the Cooper Institute last
night. After the usual reading OF sc1en-
tiic 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 a great circle of the earth. Combating
the prevailing notion that the shores and
banks of Newfoundland defect the current
from its natural and normal path, evidence
was brought to show that it moved in ODE
d1enee TO 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, 1t seeks to Ind
an equilibrium by changing places with
them.
The new positions were advanced by the
lecturer as to this mysterious hoW OF the
ocean. He denied that the usual easterly
curve of the Gulf stream las the maps give
itl. bv which il is made to sweep toward
the Azores and around to the shores OF
Africa. have any existence. There is q
currentlan offshoot, apparently-rscur-
ring in this direction, but 1t is q mere
drift. This, he explained, is caused by the
.sbraye west winds" or, more properly,
southwest winds, which, he said, ''every-
where on the globe, north of the Troplc OF
Cancer, are the same" The true Gulf
Stream, however, flows on / 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 felt. In 1881
the harbor of st. Johns, newfoundland,
lSOO miles south of Hammerfest, had
been frozen up as late as the month OF
June. But the harbor of Hammerfest has
never been known to be closed by ice, even
in mid-winter.
Mr.. Maury advanced the idea also, that
the Gulf Stream is much more b a It's
name purports. 1t is not a mere stream
from the Gulf of Mexico, but a volume
nearly as large as the great equatorial cur
rentitself. Though the stream, as 1t comes
through the narrows Of Florida, is a thous-
and times as large as the 'Father OF
Waters" at New Orleans, it is afterward
reinforced by an immense shaving OF the
main equatorial currentknown 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 then
read a letter from Capt. Silas Brent (the CO.
workers of Commodore Perry IN his Japan
expedition), whom he had consulted on the
views he entertained, and who, in a clear
and concise statement, Endorsed his reas-
oning.
If this be true, the lecturer said, the
views now entertained by geographers OF
the climatic power of the Gulf Stream must
undergo q serious revision, if not a decided
revolution. 1t would no longer be regard
ed as the comparatively small issue through
the Narrows of Bemini, but q stream more
than double as large, and n which was
fully equal to the Office claimed for it, OF
penetrating the regions of the extreme
north, and breaking through the massive
ice-waIls which surround and guard the
avenues to the Pole itself. The "blue'
color and ''phosphorescent," features o.
the Gulf Stream were described and ex-
planned. Prof. Maury compared the Gull
Stream to the Milky Way, because 1T
warm water at night was made by the my
Rad insects to glow and sparkle like a ses
of fire.