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Show 136 STEPPES AND DESERTS. possibility of trunks of South American and West Indian trees being carried, in spite of the trade winds, to the coasts of the Canary Isbnds, and stranded there. I have made many experiments on the temperature of the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of the Banks of Newfoundland. The stream brings the warmer water of lower latitudes into more northern regions with much rapidity, and I have thus found its temperature two or three degrees of Reaumur (5° to 7° Fah.) higher than that of the adjacent unmoved masses of water, which form as it were the banks of the warm oceanic river. The flying fish of the tropics (Exocetus volita.ns) accompanies the warm water of the Gulf Stream far into the temperate zone. Floating sea-weed (Fucus natans), chiefly taken up by the stream in the Gulf of Mexico, shows when a ship is entering the current, and the arrangement of the branches of the sea-weed shows the direction of the movement of the water. The mainmast of the English ship of war, the Tilbury, destroyed by fire on the coast of San Domingo, was carried by the Gulf Stream to the north coast of Scotland. Even casks filled with palm oil, the remains of the cargo of a ship wrecked off Cape Lopez on the coa.st of Africa, were carried in the same manner to Scotland,* after having twice traversed the whole breadth of the Atlantic j once from east to west with the equatorial current between 2° and 12° N. lat., and once from west to east by the aid of the Gulf Stream, between 45° and 55° N. lat. Rennell, in p. 34 7 . of the "Investigation of Currents," relates the voyage of a bottle with papers enclosed, thrown overboard by the English ship Newcastle on the 20th of January, 18191 in lat. 38° 52'1 and long. 63° 58'1 which was picked up on the 2d of June, 1820, at the Rosses (near the island of Arran), on the west coast of Ireland. A short time before my arrival at Teneriffe, a stem of South American cedar (Cedrela odorata), well covered with lichens, had been cast ashore in the harbor of Santa Cruz. Effects of the Gulf Stream in stranding on the Islands of Fayal, Flores, and Corvo in the Azores, bamboos, artificially cut pieces of " [The circumstance referred to was even more remarkable. Casks of palm oi l, part of the cargo of the ship wrecked near Cape Lopez, were conveyed by the current to Finmarl1en, and stranded near the North Cape. Vide Editor's note in the English translation of "Cosmos," val. i. p. xcvii.]-T1·. |
