Matthew Fontaine Maury, Lieutenant, U.S.N.

“ It might fall in an hour, or it might fall in a day; but, occupy what time it might in falling, this rain is calculated to exert so much force — which is inconceivably great — in disturbing the equilibrium of the ocean. If all the water discharged by the Mississippi River during the year were taken up in one mighty measure, and cast into the ocean at one effort, it would not make a greater disturbance in the equilibrium of the sea than would the fall of rain supposed. Now this is for but one fifth of the Atlantic, and the area of the Atlantic is about one fifth of the seaarea of the world ”

“ Few persons have ever taken the trouble to compute how much the fall of a single inch of rain over an extensive region in the sea, or how much the change even of two or three degrees of temperature over a few thousand square miles of its surface, tends to disturb its equilibrium, and consequently to cause an aqueous palpitation that is felt from the equator to the poles Let us illustrate by an example: The surface of the Atlantic Ocean covers an area of about twenty-five millions of square miles. ”

“ Now if we may be permitted to apply to the Gulf Stream and to the warm flows of water from the Indian Ocean an idea suggested by the functions of the human heart in the circulation of the blood, we perceive how these pulsations of the great seaheart may perhaps assist in giving circulation to its waters through the immense system of aqueous veins and arteries that run between the equatorial and polar regions. ”

“ THERE is a movement of the waters of the ocean which, though it be a translation, yet does not amount to what is known to the mariner as current, for our nautical instruments and the art of navigation have not been brought to that state of perfection which will enable navigators generally to detect as currents the flow to which I allude as drift. ”

“ THREE THOUSAND AMERICAN VESSELS, it is said, are engaged in the fisheries. If to these we add the Dutch, French, and English, we shall have a grand total, perhaps, of not less than six or eight thousand, of all sizes and flags, engaged in this one pursuit. Of all the industrial pursuits of the sea, however, the whale fishery is the most valuable. Wherefore, in treating of the physical geography of the sea, a map for the whales would be useful. ”

“ Of all the currents in the sea, the Gulf Stream is the best defined; its limits, especially those of the left bank, are always well marked, and, as a rule, those of the right bank, as high as the parallel of the thirty-fifth degree of latitude, are quite distinct, being often visible to the eye. The Gulf Stream shifts its channel (§ 53) , but nevertheless its banks are often very distinct. ”

“ Both shores of North America, the east coast of China, with the west coasts of Europe and South America, are all washed by cold waters, and therefore we may infer that their markets abound with the most excellent fish. The fisheries of Newfoundland and New England, over which nations have wrangled for centuries, are in the cold water from Davis’s Strait. The fisheries of Japan and Eastern China, which almost, if not quite, rival these, are situated also in the cold water. Neither India, nor the east coasts of Africa and South America, where the warm waters are, are celebrated for their fish. ”

“ The sperm whale likes warm-water. The right whale delights in cold water. An immense number of log-books of whalers have been discussed at the National Observatory, with the view of detecting the parts of the ocean in which the whales are to be found at the different seasons of the year. ”

“ They gradually pass into warm; for in traveling from the poles to the equator they partake of the temperature of the latitudes through which they flow, and grow warm.
535. Plate IX., therefore, is only introduced to give general ideas; nevertheless, it is very instructive. See how the influx of cold water into the South Atlantic appears to divide the warm water, and squeeze it out at the sides, along the coasts of South Africa and Brazil. So, too, in the North Indian Ocean, the cold water again compelling the warm to escape along the land at the sides, as well as occasionally in the middle. ”

“ The motions of the Gulf Stream (§ 53) , beating time for the ocean and telling the seasons for the whales, also suggest the idea of a pulse in the sea, which may assist us in explaining some of its phenomena. At one beat there is a rush of warm water from the equator toward the poles, at the next beat a flow from the poles toward the equator. ”

“ At night the clouds interpose, and prevent radiation from this fifth, whereas the remaining four fifths, which are supposed to have been screened by clouds, so as to cut off the heat from the sun during the day, are now looking up to the stars in a cloudless sky, and serve to lower the temperature of the surface waters, by radiation, two degrees. ”