KURO SHIWO, koo-roo she'wo (literally, °dark blue salt”, or, in common parlance, the black current or stream. It was distinguished from the water on either side of it and named by the Japanese ages ago. An old Japanese map shows the general features of the north ern Pacific, Bering's Strait and islands and its shores quite accurately delineated. Yet this river of warm water in the Pacific Ocean was first scientifically studied and described by Lieut. Silas Bent, U.S.N., in Perry's expedi tion 1852-54, who made a report, the state ments and suggestions in which have been in the main confirmed by later investigators. In history, this stream of black brine contributed notably to the peopling of both Japan and America and to its flora and fauna. The first host of invaders from the Asian continent through Korea were aided by it to reach Id zumo and Hiuga, and the second set, or the great drift of humanity, from the Malay world, made good use of the current and landed at many points on the coasts of Japan. The Kuro
Shiwo is bent southward, not by impinging on the land, but is prevented from entering the Arctic Ocean by the Bering Strait, which at its deepest is only 30 fathoms, or 180 feet deep, and much less than 50 miles wide, and in it ale three islands. Through this opening the cold water rushes from the icy seas, drawing or pushing the Kuro Shiwo eastward. Though fogs abound, only a little polar ice comes through, with no icebergs, as in the Atlantic Gulf Stream. One curious effect was to sup ply the Hawaiian Islands with the splendid timber of — a word which ultimately came to mean anything unusually fine and is so i used, as an adjective, in the Hawaiian version of the Bible. Consult Perry's 'Narrative of the Japan Expedition' (1857) ; Rein's (Iapan) (1884) ; 'Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.'