North Atlantic Ocean

“ Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea-gash, which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing. The very ribs of the solid earth, with the foundations of the sea, would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us at one view the empty cradle of the ocean.... ”

“ All recent observations, he said, have shown that the vast expanse of water which has its centre in the southern hemisphere is the one great ocean of the world, and the Atlantic with the Arctic Sea, and the North Pacific, are merely its northward-extending gulfs: any physical phenomena affecting obviously one portion of its area must be regarded as one-of an interdependent system of phenomena affecting the ocean as a whole. ”

“ Suffice it to say, that the facts which we already have, indicate that the south-east trades, both of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are fresher than the north-east trades of the Atlantic, May we infer from this that the south-east trades of the Pacific are also fresher than the north-east trades of that ocean? If we may so infer, and be right, then there is another step which we may take with boldness, and pronounce the atmospherical circulation of the southern hemisphere to be much more active than that of the northern. ”

“ In like manner, deep-sea sounding may lead to great, as yet unimagined, results. Although yet in its infancy, it has already resulted in the discovery of a comparatively shallow plateau or ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, rising between Ireland and Newfoundland; a discovery which has been turned to practical account, inasmuch as the plateau has been chosen to be the bed of our electric telegraph between Europe and America. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Atlantic from October to May and extreme southern Atlantic from May
to October; persistent fog can be a maritime hazard from May to
September
international agreements: NA
Geographic note: major choke points include the Dardanelles,
Strait of Gibraltar, access to the Panama and Suez Canals; strategic
straits include the Strait of Dover, Straits of Florida, Mona
Passage, The Sound (Oresund) , and Windward Passage; the Equator
divides the Atlantic Ocean into the North Atlantic Ocean and South
====================================================================== ”

“ The evidence that has been so fully and judiciously stated in the introduction, amounts to the highest degree of probability that a north-west passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean, cannot exist to the southward of 65° of latitude. If then there exists a passage, it must be either through Baffin’s Bay, or round by the north of Greenland, in the western hemisphere; or else through the Frozen Ocean, to the northward of Siberia, in the eastern; and on which ever side it lies, the navigator must necessarily pass through Beering’s Straits. ”

“ He might also observe that the northern girdle is cut across, so that the Atlantic opens by a wide space into the Arctic Sea, while the Pacific is contracted toward the north, but confluent with the Antarctic Ocean. The Atlantic is also relatively deeper and less cumbered with islands than the Pacific, which has the highest ridges near its shores, constituting what some visitors to the Pacific coast of America have not inaptly called the "back of the world," while the wider slopes face the narrower ocean. ”

“ The Atlantic occupies a long, winding, comparatively narrow trough, that measures about ten thousand miles north and south, from the ice of the Antarctic to the ice of the Arctic ocean, and has only a few islets south of Iceland, the Faroes and the Shetlands, which rise from a plateau stretching from Labrador to Great Britain, the higher points of which were probably above the water within comparatively recent geological times, possibly since man appeared upon the globe. ”

“ The eastern tendency of the water in the northen part of the north Atlantic, due to the prime moving force mentioned above and independent of the winds which prevail there, causes the surface of the ocean in the latitude of Newfoundland to be somewhat depressed below the general level next to the coast, which also adds to the force of the Gulf-stream. ”

“ They could not fly over from Europe, nor could they now cross Behring Strait, with the Arctic climate there existing. Imaginative persons have supposed a submerged Atlantic Continent, which bridged the chasm in a remote geological period. The myth of the Atlantis has been recently furbished up under the facts supplied by the deep-sea soundings of the English steamer Challenger, and the discovery of a plateau at the bottom of the ocean, between North America and Europe. But, if it ever existed, it probably did so at a time before the ancestors of our present moths came into being. ”

“ An investigation of this kind is beyond the powers of private enterprise. It requires more power and sea skill than naturalists usually have. It is a work for governments. That [654] of the United States has contributed fully its share. The coast survey has added a great deal to our knowledge of the deep sea, and the ships of the navy took part in the soundings by which the existence of the plateau across the bed of the North Atlantic, which has been used for the ocean telegraphic cable, was proved. ”

“ This irregularity in the tides of the German Ocean and its subsidiary friths or inland seas will be easily accounted for, by considering the effect of westerly winds passing for a length of time over the Atlantic, which must naturally force an undue quantity of water from thence into the entrance of the North Sea, between the coasts of Scotland and Norway; while the Strait of Dover, to the southward, from the same cause, is gorged by the surplus waters of the British Channel flowing in an opposite direction, and checking the tide of the German Ocean. ”

“ While the prevalence of certain winds, and the form of the coast of South-America, are favorable to a direct trade with the continent of North-America, they are such as to compel the commerce with Europe to pass along our shores, and thus constitute our Atlantic seaports so many stopping places at which the ships of the old world may touch in their voyages to and fro. ”

“ Atlantic Ocean.—On the Atlantic there are more ships than on any other ocean, because Europe and North America, which lie on either side of it, carry on more trade than the other continents. Ships, carrying passengers and goods, are constantly crossing this ocean. ”

“ Economy ::Atlantic Ocean
Economy - overview:
The Atlantic Ocean provides some of the world's most heavily trafficked sea routes, between and within the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Other economic activity includes the exploitation of natural resources, e.g., fishing, dredging of aragonite sands (The Bahamas) , and production of crude oil and natural gas (Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and North Sea) . ”

“ It is known from previous investigations in the South Atlantic, that the waters at the greatest depths, several thousand metres below the surface, have a temperature of between 0° and 3° C. Along the whole Atlantic, from the extreme north (near Iceland) to the extreme south, there runs a ridge about half-way between Europe and Africa on the one side, and the two American continents on the other. A little to the north of the Equator there is a slight elevation across the ocean floor between South America and Africa. ”

“ The Red Sea is out of account altogether; even the Mediterranean is too small to have great influence, and the Atlantic Ocean affects only a narrow belt along the west coast. Over regions so vast and so hot, every cloud is dispersed without moistening or fertilizing the parched ground. Only when we go much further south, near the equator, do the conditions change. ”

“ With some reservation it may be affirmed that the trade-winds and their modifications and counter-currents are the cause of all movements in the stratum of the ocean above the neutral layer. All the vast mass of water, often upward of two thousand fathoms in thickness below the neutral band, is moving slowly to the northward; in fact, the depths of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, are occupied by tongues of the Antarctic Sea, preserving in the main its characteristic temperature. ”

“ It is therefore not unlikely that the Atlantic may remain undisturbed, unless secondarily and indirectly, until after the Pacific area shall have attained to a greater degree of quiescence than at present. But this subject is one too much involved in uncertainty to warrant us in following it further. In the mean time the Atlantic is to us a practically permanent ocean, varying only in its tides, its currents, and its winds, which science has already reduced to definite laws, so that we can use if we can not regulate them. ”

“ As it is with elevations of the earth's surface, so it is with bodies of water; they may be connected together without being the same thing. The Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea are connected together at the Straits of Gibraltar ”

“ Where the central oceanic buckle attains the water-line we have our oceanic islands, seen in our type ocean, as St Helena and the Azores. Although the apparent crust-waves are neither equal in size nor symmetrical in form, this complementary relationship between them is always discernible. The broad Pacific depression seems to answer to the broad elevation of the Old World—the narrow trough of the Atlantic to the narrow continent of America. ”

“ The high sea-level of the equatorial calm belt of the Atlantic contains a large portion of the conserved heat of the tropical Atlantic, which at this age sends off a somewhat limited supply of warm water to the Gulf Stream, and also to the Brazil current. But, whenever the Cape Horn channel is closed or much obstructed, so causing a great low sea-level in the Southern Atlantic, the tropical waters heaped against Brazil, and the raised waters of the great calm region being one continuous high sea-level, would mostly be attracted to the vast low sea-level of the southern ocean. ”

“ The result of all these operations is, that we know the contours and the nature of the surface-soil covered by the North Atlantic, for a distance of seventeen hundred miles from east to west, as well as we know that of any part of the dry land.
It is a prodigious plain—one of the widest and most even plains in the world. If the sea were drained off, you might drive a wagon all the way from Valentia, on the west coast of Ireland, to Trinity Bay, in Newfoundland. ”

“ The strong southeast trades blow up from Southern Africa, cross the equator, and drive the waters of the South Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea. The lighter northeast trades, blowing between North Africa and the West Indies, assist and give direction to this movement, which finally impels through the Straits of Florida a tide of tropical waters a hundred times greater than the outflow of all the rivers in the world. ”

“ In the writings of the ancients we find reference made to an island which, if it ever did exist, now exists no longer. It was situated opposite the Straits of Gibraltar, was nearly two hundred miles in length, and was called "Atlantis"—hence the name of the Atlantic Ocean. Many believe, and with some reason, we think, that this island was not altogether a myth, although much that is said of it is undoubtedly fabulous. ”

“ In all probability they will be weeks of infinite content and delight, for the southern half of the Atlantic Ocean is milder in her moods than the northern half, and there will be a sufficient number of stops en route to relieve the journey of monotony. ”

“ Your readers will possibly comprehend that the Atlantic, in this parable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which we drift and that the bunch of corks represents the little and obscure planetary system to which we belong. A third-rate sun, with its rag tag and bobtail of insignificant satellites, we float under the same daily conditions towards some unknown end, some squalid catastrophe which will overwhelm us at the ultimate confines of space, where we are swept over an etheric Niagara or dashed upon some unthinkable Labrador. ”

“ I have heard that these far-away ocean-depths are very quiet and still—no rolling waves ever break their stillness, and this is proved in a very beautiful way. At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, where overhead great billows which seem mountain-high are in ceaseless motion, there lie beds of delicate shells, so small that you need a microscope to see their beauty, yet these shells are unbroken; no storm ever reaches their quiet home ”