The New York herald., 1922-10-29
within the thousands Of years that the
weather and climate have been expe-
rienced by civilized peoples. leaving
records of their life and times.
Gulf Stream Owes Fame
To Benjamin Franklin


To Benjamin Franklin
The extraordinary fact about this
fallacy is that while Benjamin Frank
lin. who was the man who gave the
Gulf Stream it's great reputation as
a factor In seaborne commerce, had
little to say about its significance as
a factor in climate making, he had a
very correct idea as to the Gulf
Stream being the result of the per-
manent wind motion and he was also
far ahead Of his time in believing that
climate and weather phenomena were
the results of the aerial circulation.
His common sense attitude toward the
stream was abandoned by the very
famous Mathew Fontaine Maury and
1t Is Maury who is the father and the
originator of the Gulf Stream myth
which he set out In his Physical
Geography Of tho Sea published in
1853.
Printed In all the European Ian
guages Maury's strange delusion that
the Gulf Stream caused the mild cli-
mate Of Europe has been followed by
most of the writer's Of school books in
Europe, In Great Britain and in the
United States down almost to the
present day and date. And 1t Is this
extraordinary mental laziness that has
allowed text book writer's to repeat a
picturesque old belief rather than ac-
Cept the tenets Of modern meteorology
that is the real cause for the persist
ence OF the Gulf Stream delusion in
addition to a certain element Of char
latanism that seems to effect the
with the sea at home in observatories
or on the rolling deep itself.
Twenty years ago critical exam
ination of physical Biographies taught
in Great Britain and the United States
showed that most of them repeated
the old Maury belief that the Gulf
Stream was a hot water current that
carried It's beneficent influences to the
very edges of the Arctic Sea. Conse-
quently a generation brought up on
such books wants picturesque phys
ical sign and still finds 1t in the un-
digested nonsense printed about the
Gulf Stream as colossal and mex
plicable phenomenon Of the coastal
waters OF the United States.
School Books Still Cling
To the Hot Water System,
Moreover, while the modern phys
ical Biographies used in most Of our
schools present comprehensively the
accepted geographic and meteorologic
facts in most beautifully illustrated
volumes and are absolutely correct as
to weather phenomena with the maps
of the United States weather bureau
carefully reproduced and explained. ii
is amazing that at this very moment
in the schools Of the country many of
these books still slip on the Gulf
Stream as a causer Of climate
though that the myth has been ex-
ploded Is occasionally revealed in GER
tain cautious qualifications Of the ex-
| treme Maury and postMaury view
| point.
In one very popular and splendidly
published work after the wonderful
character of the. big ocean currents
has been explained the writer's
summed up the matter as follows
These ocean currents help to make
the difference In temperature between
the eastern coasts of America and the
Western coasts Of Europe in the same
latitude" This use of the word help
| is little cautious, and shows that the
pro- Maury claimants, who are en-
phatic in saying that the ocean cur
rents do cause the mild climate OF
Europe don't quite have everything
their own way But this caution as to
help" is only a small part of a section
which conveys a wholly false impress
sion, while in another very popular
geography, famous for its range and
its excellence, the writer also vitiates
an otherwise excellent chapter on
weather and climate. for although the
work was published as late as 1913
il says In explaining climatic condi-
tons: From what has been said we
see that the northeastern coasts OF
| both North America and Asia are
swept by ocean currents from the cold
north. On the other hand, the north
western coasts Of Europe and North
America are approached by warm
drifts of water from the south"
| Curiously enough. two years later
the very same specialist who got out
the 1919 book and who thought that
cold water currents gave us our cold
weather on the eastern seaboard and