Gulf of Bothnia

“ With the exception of about four hours of open sea in crossing the Gulf of Bothnia, the steamer is constantly surrounded by islands, many of them highly picturesque, and all interesting from their peculiar geological formation. Occasionally the island winds like a snake through a wilderness of naked granite boulders, round and slippery, and barely high enough out of the water to afford a foundation for a few fishermen’s huts, which from time to time break the monotony of their solitude. Sometimes the channel opens out into broad lakes, apparently hemmed in on all sides by pine-covered cliffs ”

“ The Gulf of Bothnia extends six degrees to the north of Abo, but there is no trade or travel that requires a steamer, and ours is now to strike across the gulf, through the Aland Isles to Stockholm. We are bound there to visit Sweden and Norway. Those who have not this trip in view, and wish to see more of the country, can remain at Abo and go back to Wyborg and St. Petersburg by land. There is semi-occasionally a coach for travellers in Finland, but the more excellent way is by private carriage, or carriole, the carriage of the country ”

“ The marine shells are all of dwarfish size, like those now inhabiting the brackish waters of the Baltic; and the marl, in which myriads of them are imbedded, is now raised more than 100 feet above the level of the Gulf of Bothnia. Upon the top of this ridge repose several huge erratics, consisting of gneiss for the most part unrounded, from 9 to 16 feet in diameter, and which must have been brought into their present position since the time when the neighbouring gulf was already characterized by its peculiar fauna. ”

“ This may be either the Atlantic or the Gulf of Bothnia, according as the migration has commenced from the west or the east side of the central elevated plateau. Those that finally perish in the sea, committing what appears to be a voluntary suicide, are only acting under the same blind impulse which has led them previously to cross shallower pieces of water with safety. ”

“ The saltest include the eastern Mediterranean with 39.5 per mille, the Red Sea with 41 to 43 per mille in the Gulf of Suez, and the Persian Gulf with 38. The fresher enclosed seas include the Malay and the East Asiatic fringing seas with 30 to 34.5 per mille, the Gulf of St Lawrence with 30 to 31, the North Sea with 35 north of the Dogger Bank diminishing to 32 further south, and the Baltic, which freshens rapidly from between 25 to 31 in the Skagerrak to 7 or 8 eastward of Bornholm and to practically fresh water at the heads of the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. ”

“ A gulf, containing hot and submarine springs, divides the secondary from the primary and schistose rocks of the peninsula of Araya. Each of these coasts is washed by a tranquil sea, of azure tint, and always gently agitated by a breeze from one quarter. A bright clear sky, with a few light clouds at sunset, reposes on the ocean, on the treeless peninsula, and on the plains of Cumana, while we see the storms accumulate and descend in fertile showers among the inland mountains. ”

“ But the lowering of the temperature is partly compensated by the flood of hot water, the Gulf Stream, which runs along the north-west coast, and the swiftness of which is often diminished by the north and north-east winds. The chain of shoals which encircles the island and which appears on our maps like a penumbra, is fortunately broken on several points, and those interruptions afford free access to the shore. In the south-east part the proximity of the lofty primitive mountains renders the coast more precipitous. ”

“ The day was raw and chilly, and the temperature rose very little, although the hills occasionally sheltered us from the wind. The scenery, also, grew darker and wilder as we advanced. The fir-trees were shorter and stunted, and of a dark greenish-brown, which at a little distance appeared completely black. Nothing could exceed [Pg 44] the bleak, inhospitable character of these landscapes. The inlets of the Bothnian Gulf were hard, snow-covered plains, inclosed by bold, rugged headlands, covered with ink-black forests. ”

“ After hoisting in the boats we shaped a course along the eastern shore of the Gulf towards Booby Island. Our being obliged to return thither, for a chronometric departure prevented our examining the middle of the upper part of the Gulf, where, according to certain vague reports, there exist islands. It is stated, for example, that after the south-west monsoon has set in strongly, numbers of coconuts are thrown on the north-west shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria. In the year 1839, moreover, a small proa was driven off the coast of Timor Laut during the north-west monsoon. ”

“ In the foregoing pages of this work, attention has been drawn to the capabilities which East Africa offers, on its coast line, for the production of the finest cotton, by the fact of its whole sea-board being washed by that great ocean-current which subsequently, in its course on the east coast of America, obtains the name of the Gulf Stream. The wonderful effect which the heat contained in this great body of water has on the climate of England, and other more torridly-situated [259] countries, is a fact too well attested to be disputed. ”

“ Above the archipelago the straits widen, swelling out to the east in a double bay, affording good anchorage, beyond which the shores become low and sandy, and a wide bank of sand extends along them about one or two miles, closely approaching the opposite side of the gulf, leaving a narrow but clear channel. This bank, affording large sturgeon, was named by Vancouver after that fish; and keeping to the south around it, he did not observe that here the gulf receives the waters of Fraser River from the north. ”

“ The drifting ice of the Gulf of Boothia never consolidates and even Committee Bay is rarely covered by a smooth land floe. Pelly Bay and the sea on the east coast of Boothia as far as Victoria Harbor (Tikeraqdjuq) freeze over, since they are sheltered by numerous islands. ”

“ The bottom of the gulf is covered with sand; and the petroleum, which, from its transparency and its yellow colour, resembles naphtha, rises in jets, accompanied by air bubbles. On treading down the bottom with the foot, we perceive that these little springs change their place. The naphtha covers the surface of the sea to more than a thousand feet distant. If we suppose the dip of the strata to be regular, the mica-slate must be but a few toises below the sand. ”

“ The rivers Jenissei and Obi, which remain frozen over until late in June, likewise discharge their vast masses of ice into the gulf of Kara, so that we can not wonder that the eastern coast of Nova Zembla, fronting a sea which opposes almost insuperable obstacles to the Arctic navigator, has remained almost totally unknown until 1833, while the western coast, exposed to the Gulf Stream, and bathed, in summer at least, by a vast open ocean, has long been traced in all its chief outlines on the map. ”

“ As we approached the ugly gape of the formidable Gulf, the waves increased in size, and coursed to all directions, as if distorted by the sunken reefs. The eastern jamb is formed by Tírán Island; the western by the sandy Ras Nasráni, whose glaring tawny slope is dotted with dark basaltic cones, detached and disposed like great ninepins. Beyond this cape the Sinaitic coast, as far as Ras Mohammed, the apex of the triangle, is fretted with little indentations; hence its name, El–Shurúm—“the Creeks.” ”

“ From the North Cape to its most southern limit the distance is about eleven hundred miles. Nearly one-third of this great area lies within the Arctic circle. One would expect its climate to be that of Greenland; but Nature saves it, as a habitation for the race, by sending thither the mysterious Gulf Stream, which crosses the Atlantic for five thousand miles, and, although far spent on that distant shore, fulfills its mission, transforming, by its still warm breath, an otherwise barren region to a fertile land. ”

“ The Gulf Stream whipped into violent activity by the south east trade winds beats impetuously upon the islands of the West Indies, washes the beaches of Central America, and whirls its spinning tides within the Gulf of Mexico, and then, repulsed by the continuous shore lines of North America, returns to Europe bearing its mantle of verdure to be thrown over the hills, the capes, the valleys the western edges and islands of the Old World. ”

“ The centre of the continent must be reached by the shortest possible journey; it being advisable to avoid the despondency that seizes on a party during a protracted expedition, and to keep up throughout a certain degree of excitement. As, therefore, the greatest indentation on the shores of the continent is the Gulf of Carpentaria, the head of the Albert River, which discharges its waters into the bottom of it, is unquestionably the best point of departure that could be selected, being one-half the distance of Fort Bourke from the centre, and two-thirds nearer than Moreton Bay. ”

“ At noon this day we found ourselves once more sailing on the Atlantic, and bade farewell to the Gulf of Florida without having heard any news of the dreaded Commodore Mitchell. The narrow and dangerous part of this Gulf is about two hundred miles in length, and fifty in breadth, bordered on one side by the coast of Florida, and on the other, first by Cuba, and then by the Bahama Islands, of which the Manilla reef forms the extremity, and which reef also terminates the Gulf. ”

“ The Gulf Stream is met near the shores of Newfoundland by a current from the Polar basin, vast deposits are formed by the meeting of the opposing waters, the great submarine islands, known as ‘The Banks,’ are formed; and the rich pastures created in Ireland by the warm and humid influences of the Gulf Stream are compensated by the ‘rich sea-pastures of Newfoundland.’ The fishes of warm or tropical waters, inferior in quality and scarcely capable of preservation, cannot form an article of commerce like those produced in inexhaustible quantities in these cold and shallow seas. ”

“ The great warm ocean current called the Gulf Stream has, to most people, a more or less vague, mythical existence. The words sound familiar, but the thing itself is only an abstract idea; it lacks reality, for want of any personal experience or knowledge of its characteristic effects. To the navigator of the North Atlantic it is a reality; it has a concrete, definite existence; it is an element which enters into the calculations of his every-day life—sometimes as a friend, to help him on his course, sometimes as an enemy, to endanger, harass, and delay. ”

“ This is the case with all the harbours on the east-coast of the Red Sea, while those on the west are deep, without any banks or bars before them, which is probably owing, as I have already said, to the violence of the north-west winds, the only constant strong winds to be met with in this Gulf. These occasion strong currents to set in upon the east-coast, and heap up the land and gravel which is blown in from Arabia. ”

“ The incline is uniformly to the south-east, and apart from the few coast streams that reach the Gulf of Aden during the rains, all the running waters are collected in three rivers—the Nogal in the north, the Webi Shebeli in the centre, and the Juba (q.v.) in the south—which have a parallel south-easterly direction towards the Indian Ocean. But so slight is the precipitation that the Juba alone has a permanent discharge seawards. The Nogal sends down a turbulent stream during the freshets, while the Shebeli, notwithstanding the far greater extent of its basin, does not reach the sea. ”

“ The hot and salt waters of the tropics are carried north by the Gulf Stream. 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. ”

“ As the clouds grew darker, the wind blew in louder gusts, and the waves rose with whiter and taller crests, and lashed the shores with an ever-increasing vehemence. Along the beach on the north side of the Gulf of Finland are some twenty or thirty fishermen's huts, which form part of the straggling town of Lachta. Hard by is the spot where a ferry-boat starts—or rather started a century ago—for the opposite side of the gulf some twice or three times a week. ”

“ Among the islands the rainfall throughout the year is considerable, and the most unhealthy portion of the year throughout the Protected Territory is in April and May, as the floods are subsiding after the rainy season.
The whole of the Papuan Gulf may be regarded as unsafe for vessels to visit. The water is always muddy, and reefs cannot be seen. Moreover, there is little depth of water for miles from the shore, very often not more than two fathoms, and heavy rollers are constantly coming in. ”

“ Gathered in full force, the Gulf Stream flows northward close along the coast of our Southern States at the rate of eighty or ninety miles a day until Cape Hatteras gives it a swerve away, when it strikes out to sea and pushes straight across to Spain, where a branch leaves it and runs northward between Iceland and the British Islands, while the main body turns southward to mingle again with the equatorial current from Africa and repeat its journey all over again. ”