The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-12-02
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II.
0eo0 90 O o 90 o o o o %
With one stroke of the pen the late
DR.. Serene E. Bishop, the venerable
scientist of Hawaii, discoverer of the
famous "Bishop Rings" about the sun
and author of various scientific works,
disputes the old theory that the Arctic
current cools the air of the section
of the Pacific in which the Hawaiian
Islands lie moored, and advances the
theory that it is a current sweeping up
from the Antarctic ocean which gives
the Hawaiian Islands their incompara-
BILE climate. This theory is set forth
in paper written by Doctor Bishop
shortly before his death and is now
being issued by the promotion com
mittee as promotion pamphlet. In the
opening portion of the paper Doctor
Bishop says:
!'This climate is unique. How many
people know, or how many ever tell,
that there is no other such mild, uni
form, comfortable climate on any other
island or continent of our globes Yet
such IS the simple truth. Both for mod
Grafton and uniformity of temperature,
there is elsewhere nothing like it with
in the tropics, nor in other zones. And
there is a specific reason for this re-
markable fact, which this paper will
duly set forth.
with very slight variations from
year to year, in the cool suburbs of
Honolulu, cur August mercury ranges
| between a maximum of IS deg. and
minimum of 65 deg. In February, its
| maximum and minimum are 80 deg. and
| 55 deg. You ask, how can this be
| true? Why should the climate of Ha
wall be the one exception to all other
| climates within the tropics? Why is it
quite devoid of the sweltering heats al
| ways found elsewhere within the Tor
| rid Zone? And why should it enjoy
such almost unvarying uniformity?
In giving such explanation of the
source of this well known cold surface
| current from the Pacific Coast, the
writer is, of course, aware that he con-
travenes long accepted doctrine of
| the physical ge0graphers. Their theory
| recognizes the constant arrival upon
| the North Pacific Coast of America of
a vast body of cold water extending
| far out into the ocean. They admit
that it is of such extent as profoundly
| to modify the climate of that whole
coast, both in summer and winter. But
these scientists have entirely failed to
note the real and only adequate cause
| of that cold ocean area and have at
l 4us1 - x.a1o
is physically an impossible one.
"This long accepted theory, which
is taught in all the school biographies,
is that this vast cold ocean area, near
" as large as Australia, is merely an
| extension of the warm Japan current
or Kuro Siwo. That current sweeps
past the Aleutian Islands and becomes
chilled in passing the Southern Coast
of Alaska in latitude so deg. north.
1t is then DETECTED southwardly by the
American coast and turns down south
east along Oregon and California carry
ing with it to those States a portion
of the cold climate of Alaska.
"This absurd and impossible theory
in the absence of any competing sug-
gestion, has gained universal accept.
ance That it is absurd and impos
sible that these terms precisely de
scribe it, L now proceed to prove.
"In the first place. it is physically
impossible for any current existing in
-. either the atmosphere or in the ocean
to turn southwark toward the equator
as the assumed Japan current is alleged
to do without being at once DETECTED
to the westward by the globes rota
tion. Tt would be impossible for the
alleged current to proceed southeast
1 along the coast to Oregon. It would
] necessarily become a southwestern eur
rent, wasting itself in mdocean. L
would follow the invariable laws of al
4 currents.
''To specify more closely. As thi
Japan current began to move south
3 ward. II would at once encounter al
i ocean surface of lower latitude whiel
was rotating eastward with create
& speed than itself. because at create
& distance from the earth's axis. Tha
swifter surface would immediatel,
leave behind the oncoming current from
i the north, which had slower eastwar
Il rotation In other words that curren
! would slip westward.
Il Secondly, an actual inspection o
Z those cold waters along the Pacif
] Coast shows that they are movin
= northward and not southwark. TIL
regular current outside the Golde
Gate sets strongly to the north, Pas
the mouth of Columbia River it in
variabiy sets northward. This is prove
E by the fact that the long ocean beac
north OF the river mouth is densel