Excerpt from Theory of the Gulf Steam: Explained Chiefly Through the Agency of Solar Heat

This stream is probably generated by the great accumulation of water on the eastern coast of America between the tropics, by the trade-winds which constantly blow there. It is known that a large stream of Water, ten miles broad, and generally only three feet deep, has by a strong wind, had its water driven to one side and sustained, so as to become six feet deep, while the windward side 'was laid dry. This may give some idea of the quantity heaped upon the American coast, and the reason of its running down in a strong current through the Islands into the Bay of Mexico, and from thence issuing through the Gulf of Florida, and proceeding along the Coast to the Banks of Newfoundland, where it turns off towards, and runs down through, the Western Islands. Having since crossed the Stream several times in passing between America and Europe, I have been attentive to_ sundry circumstances relating to it, by which to know when one is in it; and, beside the Gulf weed with which it is interspersed, I find that it is always warmer than the sea each side of it, and that it does not sparkle in the night. I annex hereto the observations, made with the thermometer in two_ voyages, and may possibly add a third. It will appear from them that the thermometer may be a useful instrument to the navigator, since currents coming from the northward into southern seas will probably be found colder than the water of these seas, as the currents from southern seas into northern are apt to be warmer. (american Phi/03. Transx, vol. II., Old Series.) In April, 1854, the difference of temperature in 150 miles nearly off the Balize, was ten degrees. The temperature of the outer water was nearly that of the Gulf Stream at this season of the year.

We are now prepared to collect and group on a chart chiefly thermal, the facts relating to the Gulf Stream. I shall introduce what is known in a general way of its current incidentally.

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