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

“ The whale-fishing is, among the industrial pursuits of the sea, one of no little importance; and when the system of investigation out of which the wind and current charts have grown was commenced, the haunts of this mammal did not escape attention or examination. ”

“ PAGE 149 THE OPEN SEA IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN.
surface, by changes, from whatever cause, in the course or velocity of the surface current, for obviously the under current could not bring more water into the frozen ocean than the surface current would carry out again, either as ice or water.
287. Every winter, an example of how very close warm water in the sea and a very severe climate on the land or the ice may be to each other, is afforded to us in the case of the Gulf Stream, and the Labrador-like climate of New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. ”

“ There is an under current setting from the Atlantic through Davis’s Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and there is a surface current setting out. Observations have pointed out the existence of this under current there, for navigators tell of immense icebergs which they have seen drifting rapidly to the north, and against a strong surface current. These icebergs were high above the water, and their depth below was seven times greater than their height above. No doubt they were drifted by a powerful under current. ”

“ The open sea in the Arctic Ocean is probably not always in the same place, as the Gulf Stream (§ 54) is not always in one place. It probably is always where the waters of the under current are brought to the surface ”