Many years ago Maury wrote some striking and impressive sentences in his “Physical Geography of Sea,” such as the following:
“Our planet is invested with two great oceans; one visible, the other invisible; one underfoot, the other overhead; one entirely envelops it, the other covers about two-thirds of its surface. All the water of the one weighs about four hundred times as much as all the air of the other.”
Then again in reference to the Gulf Stream he says: “There is a river in the ocean; in the severest droughts it never fails; in the mightiest floods it never overflows; its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater. Its waters are of an indigo blue. They are so distinctly marked that their line of junction with the common sea water may be traced by the eye. Often one-half of the vessel may be perceived floating in Gulf Stream water, while the other half is in common water of the sea, so sharp is the line and such the want of affinity between those waters, and such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the part of those of the Gulf Stream to mingle with the littoral waters of the sea.”
We have all read and doubtless thought a great deal about this wonderful stream; how England and the shores of the continent are warmed by this water. But there are other streams equally important, if not so distinctly marked. Every ocean and sea has its current or currents. As the waters are warmed by the rays of the sun, they expand and flow away. But these streams are not very deep, and the Gulf Stream is shallow compared with the dark, cold current that moves below it, but in an opposite direction.
[To be continued.]
SPECULATION IN BUSINESS.
By JONATHAN.