GULF STREAM, is the name given to a constant cur rent in the ocean, produced by the trade winds, which are constantly blowing from cast to west. This current, coming from the Pacific and Indian Oceans, passes round the Cape of Good Hope, and, after going along the coast of Africa, it crosses to America towards the equator. It is there divided, and reflected southwards to the Brazils, and running along the shores of Guiana and Terra Firma, it passes through the Caribbean Sea, and coasts along the Gulf of Mexico. Issuing from the Gulf between Cape Florida and the island of Cuba, it traverses the coasts of East Florida, the United States, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and advances eastward to the banks of New fiundland, where it turns off to the south-east, and runs through the Western Islands, from which it goes to the coast of Africa, and in a southerly direction along that coast, till it supplies the place of the waters carried away to the west by the trade winds. " It is perhaps on account of these currents," says Dr Thomas Young, " that the Red Sea is found to be about 25 feet higher than the Me diterranean. f Their direction may possibly have been somewhat changed in the course of many ages, and with it the level of the Mediterranean also, since the floor of the cathedral at Ravenna is now several feet lower with respect to the sea than it is supposed to have been former ly ; and some steps have been found in the rock of Malta, apparently intended for ascending it, which are at present under water." M. Humboldt remarks, " that the Gulf Stream is occasioned by the current of rotation, (trade winds,) which strikes against the coasts of Veragua and Honduras, and, ascending towards the Gulf of Mexico, between Cape Caloche and Cape St Antoine, issues through the canal of Bahama. It is owing to this motion, that the vegetable productions of the Antilles are carried to Norway, Ireland, and the Canaries."
The general breadth of the Gulf Stream is about 50 or 60 miles. Sir Charles Blagden, in a voyage to America in the year 1774, found that the water of the Gulf Stream was from 6° to 11° warmer than the waters of the sea through which it ran. The heat at its commencement in the Gulf of Florida was about 82°, and it lost 2° for every 3° of latitude in going northwards. It continued sensible off Nantucket.
The Gulf Stream may be easily distinguished from the other waters of the ocean, by the gulf-weed with which it is every where interspersed, and by its not sparkling in the night. In high latitudes it is alMrays covered with a thick fog. Its breadth is diminished by north-east and east winds, which also increase the rapidity of its motion, and drive it nearer the coast. A contrary effect is pro duced by north-west and west winds.
The Gulf Stream passes at the distance of about 75 miles from the coast of the southern states of America. This distance, however, augments as it advances north wards. Its common velocity is about three miles an hour, and it takes about 20 days to run from Cape Florida to Newfoundland.
See Franklin's Maritime Observations, in the Transac tions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. ii. p. 314. This paper contains a chart of the Gulf Stream, principally from the observations of Captain Folger. Blagden On the Heat of the Water in the Gulf Stream, in the Phil. Trans. 178I, page 334. Pownall's Hydraulic and Nautical Observations, 4to, London, 1787. This last work also contains a chart of the Gulf Stream. Kennel, Phil. Trans. 1793, vol. lxxxiii. p. 8. Humboldt's Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, vol. i. p. 53 ; and Humboldt's Voyage to the Tropics, vol. IL chap. 1. Young's Natural Philosophy, vol. i. p. 587 ; and Morse's Geography. See also PHYSICAL Geography.