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Updated: May 26, 2025
There are here two counteracting agents at work. Heat inclines the Gulf Stream to rise; saltness inclines it to sink. During the first part of its journey, as we know, its great heat prevails over the other influence, and it flows as a surface-current. But, at a certain point in its northward route, it meets with the cold, brackish, ice-bearing currents that flow out of the arctic basin.
This apparent anomaly could only be accounted for by the fact that a powerful undercurrent carried them northward; and as at least seven times more of these bergs must have been under than above water, we can easily understand how the under-current, acting on the larger mass of each berg, had power to carry it against the surface-current.
The Gulf Stream gets shunted off from New England by the formation of the coast below: besides, it is too shallow to be of any service. Icebergs float down against its surface-current, and fill all the New-England air with the chill of death till June: after that the fogs drift down from Newfoundland. There never was such a mockery as this Gulf Stream.
It is frequently stated, as a reason for its equable climate, that Scilly lies right in the course of the Gulf Stream. Of course this is a mistake. The true Gulf Stream does not come within a thousand miles of Britain. There is, however, a surface-current of warm water carried north-eastward from hot latitudes, and this materially affects not only Scilly, but the entire western coast.
Most of their ballast had been expended in getting into the air, and while they had found almost a calm at an elevation of forty-five hundred feet, the surface-current was terrific. The balloon approached the earth at an angle of about forty-five degrees with fearful velocity, flew across Beck's Run and tore into a clump of trees growing on a rocky ledge dividing the ravine from the river.
The Gulf Stream gets shunted off from New England by the formation of the coast below: besides, it is too shallow to be of any service. Icebergs float down against its surface-current, and fill all the New-England air with the chill of death till June: after that the fogs drift down from Newfoundland. There never was such a mockery as this Gulf Stream.
There is an under-current setting from the Atlantic, northward through Davis' Straits, into the Arctic Ocean, and a surface-current setting out. The fact is proved beyond a doubt by the observations of arctic explorers, who have seen immense icebergs drifting rapidly northward against a strong current.
Two things regulate the force of impact in a balloon descent the strength of the surface-current and the amount of ballast the aëronaut has with which to overbalance the weight in excess of equilibrium causing the descent. Both were against our adventurers.
"Now, the equatorial warm and salt current enters Baffin's Bay as a submarine current, while the cold and comparatively fresh waters of the Polar regions descend as a surface-current, bearing the great ice-fields of the Arctic seas to the southward.
This moving mass of air, which constitutes the north-east trade-wind, meets near the equator with another mass which has been moving on as the south-east trade meeting with equal force, they form a calm; and then, warmed by the heat of the sun, they ascend, one-half streaming off high up towards the south-east that is, counter to the surface-current till it reaches the southern calm belt; another mass coming from the south-west, where it descends, and rushes as a north-west surface-wind towards the south pole.
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