The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1894-11-01
MARINE CURRENTS.
New Instruments Showing How They be-
gin and Are Maintained.

New Instruments Showing How They Be-
gin and Are Maintained.
The marine globe, an apparatus to
produce currents similar to sea cur
rents" consists Of glass globe, under
the interior wall of which are con-
structed the massive outline OF conti-
nents and the hollows of sea basins
The bottom of the sea consists of an
interior sphere, concentric with the
one of glass, moving on vertical axis
and worked by a gearing. The sea
basins are filed with water, contain
ing particles of sterine in suspension,
which render all its movements visible.
The exterior of the apparatus does not
differ much from that of geographic
cal globe.
When the movable globe turns upon
itself, says the Cosmopolitan, the
water Is seen to start From both
extra-tropical regions it advances,
I,along the sea bottom, toward the
, equator; tlcre the two currents, from
the north and from the south, meet,
and together rise to the plane Of the
great circle; reaching the surface in q
stream that occupies the equatorial
belt Of the oceans, the waters pour
southwark and northward of their line
of emergence; then, almost immediate
ly borne toward the west, they produce
in their course all the secondary cur
rents which are formed by the outlines
Of the shores and the shapes of the sea
bottoms.
Through the transparent glass one
| can follow the movements of the LIQUID
mass and get better idea of sea cur
| rents than from the finest map. For
the best specimens of photography
seem only dead-letter compared with
these real, moving currents, emerging,
| advancing on the surface, then disap-
pearing in the depths of these minia-
ture oceans, the capacity of which is
| scarcely more than a few glasses of
| water.
This apparatus is both useful play
| thing for children and an object Of
serious thought for students. Every
| young geographer in our primary
schools would delight to follow with
his eyes, on this little artificial world,
the marvellous evolutions of the water
of the oceans; every earnest investi-
| gator into the phenomena of nature
would be surprised at the facts re-
vealed by this simple instrument, and
would perhaps be disposed to question
| the value of certain notions on the phys
les Of the globe, which till now he has
held without questioning.
The marine globe would facilitate
the teaching of geography, so far as
| the sea currents are concerned, and the
notifications these effect in climate,
regardless of latitude; it may also aid
navigation, and furnish photography
with valuable data for the coordinat-
ing and completing of the experimental
study of marine currents, their origin,
their mutual relations, their tempera-
ture, their fauna, etc. Finally, it
seems to me, 1t may promote the
science Of physics, because it is, as con-
Germs the liquid element, the material
demonstration of this hypothesis which
led to its construction: ''The liquid
element enveloping the solid nucleus
of the terrestrial globe, being set in
motion by diurnal rotation, receives
from this an impulse, which, modified
by the outlines Of continents, pro-
duces, in nearly all their details, the
| currents of the sea-"