Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1883-02-15
THE GULF STREAM.
Old Notions Modified. Result of Conn
mander Bartlett's Researches.
Baltimore SUM-

| Baltimore Sun
Maury's Physical Geography of the SCI
worked out the lines upon which the scen
tific study of the gulf stream should proceed
and BroOke's invention of an efficient deep
sea sounding apparatus first put it in the
power of photographers to investigate thor
oughly the questions raised by Maury's wide
generalizatiOns. Since the date when Maury
and Brooke withdrew from the United State.
service there have been many inventors anG
explorers whose work has considerably mod
flied the views held by these photographers
respecting the origin, the course and the
limits of the great River in the Sea-" Steam
ships have supplanted sailing vessels and in
struments have been perfected Exploration
has been busy. According to statements
made in the New York Nation, the result o.
the work done in the last decade is that
many of the ideas at present current in re-
gard to the gulf streum must be abandoned
The origin of ocean currents is conceded tC
be due to reaction of the atmosphere upon
the ocean circulation-that is to say, they
are caused by the winds and modified by the
differences of rotational diameter of the
earth between the equator and the poles
which tend to defect to the right any mov-
ing body in the northern hemispheres" The
westward current in the Atlantic north ot
the equator, striking the eastern coast OF
South America is DETECTED to the northwest,
and skirting that continent at length reaches
the Lesser Antilles, chain of islands ex-
tending north and south across its course. Part
of the stream is DETECTED by the Antilles
northward and continues on along the north
coast of Hayti and Cuba, while another
larger part passes between the Antilles and
South America, thus penetrating into the
Caribbean Sea. Thence it sweeps around
the western extremity of Cuba and passes
out between that island and Florida in the
Atlantic, being reinforced between the Ba-
hamas and Florida by the DETECTED current
mentioned above. Contrary to the common
notion, the gulf stream is not gulf stream
in the sense that it is a stream that makes
the circuit Of the Gulf Of Mexico. 1t is in
dependent of the gulf current proper, and
touches the gulf only on the eastern border.
When the stream passes out through the
Straits of Florida it is forty-eight miles wide,
and where deepest has measurement of 439
tathoms. Its velocity is about three knots
an hour, so that the delivery here per day is
about 433 900, ,OOO,0OO,OO0 tons of water at
seldom exceeding So degrees in
June and July. AS it makes its way north
ward and eastward through the Atlantic its
width varies from so to 100 miles, and its
velocity is about two and half miles per
hour. temperature and velocity being greater
at its axis than in the lateral parts. 1t does
not flow over cushion of cold water, as is
generally believed, but over hard coral rock,
nor is it bounded by "cold walr' and intercO-
lated with cold hands" The latter credited
to rain squalls producing accidental inequal-
tiles of temperature at the surface The
gulf stream properly so called does not reach
Norway, nor does it proceed as far even as
IS Great Britain. Commander Bartlett, to
whom many of the latter discoveries are due,
mas exploded also the old idea that the Arc
.ic current, as such, runs beneath the gulf
stream to the gulf ITSELF or even as far as
he Straits of Florida.