The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1870-03-10
The Gulf Stream.

From the New York Tribune, Feb II.
The announcement that Professor r.
B. Maury would lecture on the "Gulf
Stream,' before the Polytechnic Branch
of the American Institute, attracted Il
large audience at their rooms in the
Cooper Institute last night. After the
usual reading of scientific items by Prof
Timar, 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
highway known rs the Gulf Stream.
This current, 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
! its natural and normal path, evidence
was brought to show that it moved in
obedience to the diurnal rotation Of the
that, being of a different specific gravity
from tkewaters of the Polar Sea, it seeks
to find an equilibrium by changing
places with them.
The new positions We're advanced by
the lectu rer as to this mysterious flow of
the ocean. He denied that the usual
easterly curve of the Gulf Stream (as
the maps give it, by which it is made
to sweep toward the Azores and around
toward the shores Of Africa, have any
exist ence. There is a current-an off:
shoot, apparentIy-recurrn in this di-
rection, but it is mere drH. This, he
explained, is caused by the "brave west
Winds or, more properly, southwest
winds, which, he said, "everywhere on
the globe, north Of the Tropic Of Cancer,
are the same" The true Gulf stream,
however, flows on in a mighty and re-
sistless 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 ofSt. Johns, Newfound-
land, 800 miles south Of uammerfest,
had been frozen up as late as the mont h
of June. But the harbor of Hammer
fest has never been known to be closed
by ice, even in mid-wiuter.
| Mr.. Maury advanced tho idea also,
that the Gulf Stream is much more than
! nt
stream from the Gulf of Mexico, but a
volume nearly as large as the great
equatorial current itself. Though the
stream, as it comes through the narrows
of Florida, is il thousand times as large
as the "Father of Waters" at New Or
leans, it is afterward reinforced by an
immence shaving of tn main equatori-
al current known as the Northwest
Branch. This body of water being of
the same or nearly the same tempera-
ture and gravity as the Gulf Stream
proper, readily unites with it after the
latter has passed the Bahamas. The
lecturer then read Il letter from Capt.
; ilas Brent (the CO. workers of Commo-
doic cry III HIS Japan ehpehlaltlOn,J
whom he had consulted on the views
he entertained and who, in clear and
concise statement, indorsed his reason-
ing.
If this be true, the lecturer eaid, the
views now entertained by geographers
of the eli matte power Of the Gulf Stream
must undergo serious revision, if not
a decided revolution. 1t would 10
longer be regarded as the comparatively
small issue through the Narrows of
Bemini, but stream more than double
as large, and one which was fully equal
to the Office claimed for it, of penetrat-
ing the regions Of the extreme north
and breaking through the massive ice
walls which surround and guard the
avenues to the Pole itself. The "blue"
color and 'phosphorescent," features of
the Gulf Stream were described and ex-
planned. Prof Maury compared the
Gulf Stream to the Milky Way, because
its warm water at night was made to
sparkle and glow like sea Oh fire by
myriad insecte