The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-07-08

| u EF. DIR. S. E. BISHOP writes as
| IN follows in the Washington
| Star:
| Hawaii has extraordinary attractions
to draw tourists, and they are begin
| ming to pour in upon US, so that we are
being put to our best energies to pro-
vide quarters and transportation for
| them. But the greatest attraction of
| all, when understood, is bound to be
| Hawaii s unique and marvellous eli
mate. 1t is not yet commonly under
| stood that we possess the only climate
of the kind on this globe. 1t is not a
tropical climate, but mildly and uni
formly subtropical. We never have tor
| rid heats, nor even have chilly weather,
except at high attitudes. Your summer
| nights in Washington and New York
are simply terrible to us from Hawaii,
| where we never know such thing as a
/ sweltering night and generally need a
| blanket on the bed all summer While
| there is difference between our win
| ter and summer, it is very moderate
| In Honolulu between January l and
| April l the mercury ranges between an
extreme minimum of 50 degrees and
maximum of rs degrees. Between
| August l and November 1 the extremes
| of the mercury are 70 degrees and SO
degrees. Please to observe that our
summers and winters are each full
month later in the year than elsewhere
| in the northern hemisphere.
Now, for each of these peculiar facts
there is a definite reason growing out
of very singular oceanic conditions
which do not exist elsewhere on the
globe. [ will explain them, begging
close attention, because our rare eli
mate may seem unaccountable.
1t is a well-established fact, repeated
in all the night school biographies, that
the coasts of Oregon and California are
constantly washed by a copious cola
current of between 35 and 40 degrees.
This remarkable current maintains a
constant extreme GOODNESS through the
whole summer for many miles inland,
so that overcsatS are a necessity in San
Francisco summer afternoons, and Los
Angeles enjoys constant summer cool
ness. This singular summer climate of
the Pacific coast is unknown elsewhere
on the globe, just as the Hawaiian
climate is, and from the same cause.
For that peculiar cold ocean current
turns to the southwest and drifts down
to Hawaii, cooling our otherwise torrid
climate. That it does so drift is proved
by the frequent deposit of trees and
sawlogs on the eastern side of our
island borne from the forests of the Pa
cific coast. The velocity of this eur
rent is probably between twelve and
twenty miles a day, so that it is be-
tween three and four months in reach
ing Hawaii. OF course, it absorbs con-
siderable heat from the sun during it's
long summer passage, but it is still cool
water when it reaches us, and very
greatly reduces the normal heat of our
tropical latitude. With an ocean tenn
perature around us ranging probably So
to rs degrees at different seasons of the
year, it is impossible for Hawaii to
share the unvarying torrid heats of
islands to the west, where the sea is
between 80 and 80 degrees all the year.
Neither the East nor West Indies know
any such climate as ours. These are
the veritable Fortunate islands, cool
and balmy.
And why are both winters and sum
mers pushed backward more than a |
whole month"; This is simply because !
our friendly cold current is so much be- i
hind time in arriving here In early |
summer it has failed to get duly !
warmed up on its passage having set !
out in March, while winter cold still
prevailed, in early winter also it still |
brings some of the sunshine of the
August where it started. In actual fact
Hawaii for climate is a colonial de- |
tendency of the Pacific coast as really |
as it has lately become politically de-
tendency of Uncle Sam IS dominion.
As mentioned above, the biographies
all specify that cold current as peculiar
n thp pnpjfio Tho irno |
naturally, following the standard au-
thorities, they all commit an outrage
Gus blunder as to the source of that
current. Turn to any of the school
books and you find that cold coast cur
rent represented as a continuation of the
great "gulf stream of the Japan
coast, otherwise known as the "Japan
CURRENT or the Kuro Suvo.'' This
is a vast warm current of great volume
and strength which flows out of the
China Sea and runs northeast along the
coast of Japan, exactly as the gulf
stream of the Atlantic flows out of thet
Gulf of Mexico, and runs up past the
Bermudas and Newfoundland Both
are very warm currents, and both run
northeast and are dissipated in cross
ing their respective oceans. But since.
in the ease of the Pacific ocean. an i'm
mense cold current on the American
coast has to be accounted for, a most
theory has been carelessly
adopted and given general currency,
hat the warm Japan current runs past
he Aleutian Islands in latitude 30 de-
yrees, and turns down the Pacific coast,
'educed to an exceptionally cold tenn
That this generally accepted theory
s utterly a blunder it is only neces-
'ary to adduce in proof the undeniableI
that any current of ocean or ,
iir north of the equator running north
East, if DETECTED southerly, as this
Lanan current Is assumnA Il 10 ION