Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1871-04-27
Z ? I
The, Gulf ,Stream-r7Its Origin


! nor less than a gfeaF thetinal Spring
md the ocean, and is in eyeryfeSp Spee4.
similar to zone on landfi To PHO
duce this great OCEANIC phenomIen9n,
we have only to substitute the drctic
basin for an elevated mountaiti3 and
instead of underground tempefa1
ture derived from few square rods
of the interior, take that afforded
by 145,0O0,00Q of square miles 90
900 feet nearer the interior, and the
thermal spring in the ocean is
formed! The difference is only
quantitative.
These currents, which rest on the
bottom of the sea, are colder and
denser than ice, and could not be
lifted to the surface were it not for
the forces from the interior. Alb.
stracting that heat from the crust
which underlies the sea, it will nat
urally be suggested that this process
must chill this crust to greater
depth than the atmosphere does ter
Ta .frnd, and thus rehderthe effec-
tive force of the interiorss feeble.
ON the bottom of the sea as on the
surface of the land hemispheres.
Fourier, from observations made
on terra ,fyma, finds that the loss
of heat which the globe daily sus-
tains is too feeble to pay any import
ant part. If he be correct, the tenn
perature of the oceanic waters could
never have been obtained from the
amount of heat which passes
through the land hemispheres. Yet
there is this actual presence of heat
which we have shown can not
have accumulated from the solar
ray-and the only way open is to
associate it with some law to which
it either now is or has been related.
1t will be admitted that when
these waters were of such a high
temperature as to produce tropical
climate around the shores of Green
land, they did not receive that heat
from the sun, but from the interior.
Seeing that at one time there was a
law which produced so high tenn
perature through this crust, why
should we discredit its present ex-
istence, when the temperature has
only sunk 80 degrees since? Heat
always preserves the co-efficient of
expansion, and when matter is in a
fluid state this co-efficient must ex-
list. What ever inequalities may
take place in the relation of these
condensed atoms on the crust, the
form of the fluid interior remains
unchanged, inasmuch as the expan-
sion continues. AS the heat be-
came lost from the interior of the
earth, and its fluid diameter dimin-
ished, these water hemispheres, still
retaining their reciprocal relation to
the center, went down to a cores
ponding depth. The crust which
underlies the sea was, therefore, al
ways a distance equaling the oceans
depth nearer the fluid part. How,
we would ask, could 145, 100000 of
square miles of water, $4,000 feet
deep, be kept at Temperature of
10 degrees unless an igneous fluid
world, as large as the planet Mars,
existed directly under them? This
is by no means speculation, when
we have considered the amount of
heat contained in single cubic foot
of water at this temperature. The
cause which produced the sinking of
the water hemispheres in the first in
stance has always continued. AS
the solid crust of the globe con-
denses and contracts it's folds, the
crust which underlies the sea, being
the lower fold, is forced into much
closer relation with the fluid part.
The calculations made by Fourier
are, therefore, of no value, for they
were formed, according to DR.. Mayer,
from observations made on terra
frmd-under clear misapprehen-
sion of the mode by which the in
terror heat was transmitted. Tyn-
dali makes an excellent illustration
of the principle for which we have
contended, but for 4 far different
purpose. He fills two kettles with
warm water, and around one ofthem
wraps moist blanket. He finds
that the water in the kettle thus
surrounded cools much more rapid
ly than the other-demonstrating
that it has the better radiation of
the two. Applying this demonstra-
ton to the earth, let US consider our
globe a kettle of larger proportions
not filled with warm water, but
with incandescent fluid matter
around three -fourths of which is
placed (not a blanket merely an
aqueous envelope of icy coldness at
the bottom, with wonderful powers
of radiation at the surface, and we
will then have no difficulty in deter
mining how the waters of the ocean
have always received their temper
ature, and how the interior loses its
heat.-Harper's Magazine.