Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-16
The Polar stream on Newfoundland.

The report of the temperature of the
Atlantic brought by the German steamer
Katie recently is of special interest as
showing the changes going on this sea-
son in the gulf stream and its opposing
Arctic current. On the 25th of April,
when about forty miles south Of the
southermost edge of the Newfoundland
banks Qattitude AZ degrees 26 minutes,
longitude SO degrees 26 m~inutes), this
steamer passed several icebergs, finding
the weather very cold and the tempera-
ture of the sea 80 degrees. This is an
exceptionally low temperature of the
water to be observed SO far south al
most at the close of April. Even allow
ing that it was partly due to the prox-
unity of icebergs it seems to indicate
that the glacial Labrador current is now
p%rotruding farther south than usual and
crowding the gulf stream out of its
wonted spring course. The enormous
volume Of polar ice-laden water flowing
over the banks must exert a powerful
influence both on the movement and
the temperature Of the stream against
which it impinges, especially since the
deep floating icebergs, as DR.. Carpenter
points out, bring this influence to bear
directly on the lower strata of the warm
current. So great is the southwark
sweep of the heavy glacial current that
when the buoy attached to the broken
end of the Atlantic cable of 1865 got
adrift it was found to have travelled
presumably by the action of the
underaow on the long buoy rope sus-
pended in it) nearly due south a dis
lance of six hundred miles in seventy
six days in opposition to the gulf stream.
As a proof of the remarkable changes of
the limits of the stream in various sea-
sons Admiral Irminger states that ''the
warm waters between the Bermudas
and Halifax in February 1920, had a
width of 40 miles, but in may of the
same year of 800 miles, while Gin June
1847, they were in about the same place
146 miles across"
The expansion of the area of icy water
off Newfoundland which explains the
contradiction of the water current, has
a marked influence on the weather over
the banks. Cyclones in traversing the
cold ocean have their humid winds so
| chilled that their vapor is more rapidly
condensed, and hence the pressure in
IAClI CcuUI0 ~ IcOuCcu duU buclT 1uUcu.
sity augmented. But the chief effect of
the cold water area is, when swept by
southwesterly winds saturated with
moisture, to condense their vapor into
dense fog, the seaman's chief foe. La
mont records a striking instance of the
fog-producings power of cold water
when catching in the sunlit, CLASSY seas
of Nova Zembla, he observed with the
%springing up of a southwest breeze the
sudden formation of a dense fog. The
dry winter winds on the Newfoundland
banks are replaced this month by the
moist southwest winds, and if Gas the
observations of the German steamer
referred to and other recent records in.
dicate) there is now an unusual exten.
sion Of the polar stream, the coming
summer may rival that of 1881 for fogs
1t is to be earnestly hoped, therefore
that the crowded European steamships
will this season give the banks a wid4
berth.-M Y. Herald.