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For 5 new subscribers (840.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in num bers, price $10. MARCH. THE March wind whistles through the sombre pines, Whose sable crests show on the mountain ridge, Against the cold blue sky: cold, clear, and blue, From furrows brown glow, 'Neath August sun-rays, into molten gold, Front of a Titan; of imperious will, King March rides blustering o'er dale and mead, And jocund May, track Hawthorns all odorous, pink apple-blooms, All the Year Round. ADDRESS TO THE WOON OF BHAMO. "I mentioned some weeks ago that the WOON OF BHAMO, who had interposed all manner of difficul ties in the way of trade in that quarter, had been removed, to the great delight of the merchants concerned. I am sorry to say now that there are rumours of his return to his post, and that in conse quence mercantile affairs are looking a little down. Opinions are conflicting as to the value of these old trade routes."— Times, Indian Correspondent. WOON OF BHAMO, ycnder far, Are you man, or are you thing, Are you fat, or are you lean, WOON OF BHAMO, Bhamo's Woon, And as now they seem afraid, Punch. Hard is the bargaine, and unjust the measure, ure: The joys that are on earth are counterfeits. They daily dip within thy dish and cry Quarles. THE WORLD. GREAT, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, The wonderful air is over me, And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree, You friendly Earth! how far do you go With cities and gardens, and cliffs, and isles, Ah, you are so great, and I am so small, *This line may perhaps bring to mind a greater You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!” poet. Lilliput Lectures. From The Contemporary Review. RESEARCHES IN THE 46 PORCUPINE." BY DR. W. B. CARPENTER, 131 the climate of Europe would suffer very Having recently discussed elsewhere the received doctrine of the Gulf stream,† and shown that the amount of heat it carries northwards has been immensely over-estimated, I shall not here enter into any details as to this part of the subject; but shall briefly explain what appears to me the true state of the case in regard to its extent and climatic influence. I am quite aware that, in making this assertion, I place myself in opposition to very high authorities in Physical GeograAN address has lately been delivered phy. But since, in the course of the Exbefore the Historical Society of St. Louis peditions for deep-sea exploration in (U.S.), by Captain Silas Bent, on "The which I have taken part during the last Thermometric Gateways to the Pole; "three years, I have obtained an entirely -in new set of data, which appear to me to esthe best clue to which he believes. my opinion quite justly—will be found tablish on a firm basis the doctrine of a by following the line of warm surface- general Oceanic circulation, dependent temperature under the guidance of the only upon differences of Temperature, water-thermometer. One of these "gate- which was originally suggested by Proways" he considers to exist in that pro- fessor Buff, I feel justified in placing it longation of the Gulf stream, which, ac- with some confidence before the general cording to the received doctrine of physi- public. cal geographers, flows in a north-easterly direction towards the Atlantic coasts of Europe, sensibly ameliorating our own climate, and exerting a yet greater influence upon that of regions still further north, to which it thence proceeds. But he passes all ordinary bounds in attributing to this agency the warm winter temperature of the Mediterranean; the GibThe source of the Gulf stream undoubtraltar current, according to him, being nothing else than a branch of the Gulf edly lies in the impulse given by the stream, which conveys to Genoa and Trade-winds to the superficial layer of the Naples the heat it has acquired in the Gulf portion of the Atlantic over which they of Mexico. And he even puts forth the blow, creating what is known as the unprecedented assumption that it is in the Equatorial current, which sets constantly power of his country, by obtaining pos- from the coast of Africa towards that of session of the Isthmus of Panama, and ex- America. The northern portion of that pending a few hundred millions of dol- current enters the Caribbean Sea and the lars in cutting a channel through it, to Gulf of Mexico, where it receives a further deprive Europe of the whole benefit which accession of heat, and undergoes a change it derives from the Gulf stream; and thus of direction in consequence of the resistto convert the climate of France and Aus- ance afforded by the American coast-line; tria into that of Canada, and to turn and it then issues forth in a north-easterly England, Germany, and Northern Europe direction through the narrow strait beinto a frozen wilderness, like British tween Florida and the Bahama Islands. America and Labrador. This prospect, In its course obliquely across the North with the Alabama claims still unsettled, is so appalling, that it may be some consolation to the British nation to be assured that the implied threat is nothing but an empty boast; for that if it were possible for Man to break a passage through the Isthmus of Panama (which Nature will herself doubtless accomplish in course of time) sufficiently wide to divert the Gulf stream, by allowing the Equatorial current to pass straight on into the Pacific, Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf stream gradually spreads itself out, diminishing in depth as it increases in breadth; and when it approaches the banks of Newfoundland, one portion of it bends round the Azores, and returns into the Equatorial current, thus completing the shorter circuit of that horizontal movement, of which the primum "Physics of the Earth," p. 194. + Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, Jan. 9, 1871. mobile is the action of the trade-winds. | shores of the Mediterranean, that the The other portion continues its north- former are rather the colder; so that as easterly course past the banks, there the temperature of the latter is entirely meeting with Arctic surface-currents, their own, except so far as it is affected by which tend to neutralize its movement, winds, there is no reason to suppose that and to reduce its temperature. Of these currents, the principal, which is formed by the junction of the Labrador and Greenland currents, sweeps southwards along the Atlantic sea-board of the United States, not only cutting this off from the influence of the Gulf stream, but reducing its winter temperature considerably below the normal of the latitude.* the climates of the former are in any way ameliorated by heat conveyed to them by water that has been superheated elsewhere. Evidence of such amelioration, however, shows itself very distinctly as we proceed northward from the British Channel. The slow reduction of the mean annual temper ature, and the great elevation of the winter temperature above the normal of the latitude, along the west coast of Ireland, the Hebrides, the Orkney, Shetland, and Faroe Islands — and, going further north, in Iceland, Hammerfest, Spitzbergen, and other points of the Polar area- give unmistakable evidence of the importation (so to speak) of heat from a southern source, by the agency of ocean-water. But other divisions of the Arctic current interdigitate with the divisions into which the Gulf stream there breaks up; and the latter is thenceforth no longer traceable, either by temperature or by movement, as anything more than a surface-drift, of which the prevalence of south-westerly winds in that portion of the North Atlantic affords a sufficient explanation. The aggregate of these Arctic surface-currents brings It is not unnatural, therefore, that, in back towards the intertropical area the the absence of any other explanation, this water which has flowed northwards in north-easterly flow should be supposed to these extensions of the Gulf stream; and thus completes the longer circuit of the horizontal circulation of the North Atlantic. For the notion that the Gibraltar current is a branch of the Gulf stream, and that the climate of the Mediterranean basin is in any way dependent upon the heat thus brought into it from the Gulf of Mexico, there is not the smallest foundation. The Atlantic water which enters it is colder (in summer, at least) than that of the Mediterranean; and the Gibraltar current depends, as I shall presently show, upon local conditions alone. Moreover it appears from a comparison of the temperatures of stations on the Atlantic sea-board of Spain, Portugal, and France, with stations under the same parallels on the It is quite a mistake to assume (as is very commonly done) that the difference between the winter climates of European and of American stations under the same parallels of latitude is due only to the elevation of the former above the normal. The rea son of the low winter temperature of St. John's, be a continuation of the Gulf stream current; and those who uphold the "glory of that great ocean-river, will probably be disposed to repudiate, without much hesitation, the doctrine that would attribute the amelioration of the Polar climate to any other cause. Nevertheless, I venture to think that such as may be inclined to follow me through the following inquiry, will find that I can at any rate show good grounds for calling in question the received doctrine, and for substituting a theory of much wider applicability. Some, indeed, may deem it a matter of small importance whether the Gulf stream or a general Oceanic circulation is concerned in producing the effect, which is admitted on both sides; yet the real lover of science will not only desire that the true rationale should be found for its own sake, but will see the importance of the applications which the new doctrine must possess, in the past, as well as in the contemporary, history of the globe. For Halifax, Boston, New York, and Washington, as compared with London, Paris, Bordeaux, Oporto, This has been lately worked out by Dr. Peterand Lisbon, is fully as much to be found in the re- mann in his Geographische Mittheilungen, on the duction of the former below the normal by the Arc-basis of the large number of observations which he tic current. has laboriously collected and correlated. whilst all horizontal Oceanic circulations, | reverse under-current in the Baltic Sound. dependent upon surface-agencies alone, But as the surface-current of the Baltic are liable to be modified or completely Sound runs outwards, whilst the Gibraltar diverted by changes in the contour of the surface-current runs inwards, the existence land, and must therefore have been en- of an under-current from the North Sea tirely different in successive Geological back into the Baltic could not justify the periods, a vertical circulation which de- assumption of an under-current from the pends only on the contrast of Tempera- Mediterranean into the Atlantic; unless, ture between the Polar and Equatorial indeed, it could be shown (which Dr. areas, must have continued through all Geological time, provided only that a communication existed between the great ocean-basins of the two areas. As the proper understanding of the Gibraltar current furnishes the best clue to that of the general Oceanic circulation, and as the investigation of its phenomena and the inquiry into their cause was one of the objects to which our last Porcupine expedition was specially directed, I shall first give an account of the results most recently attained. Smith did not attempt to do) that the same physical cause operates in both cases. This I shall presently endeavour to prove. The idea of an outward under-current has been supported by statements made from time to time as to the reappearance, at the western embouchure of the strait, of vessels that had been sunk near its eastern end. But if these vessels had been sunk in mid-channel, where there is a depth of five hundred fathoms, it is against all probability that they should have ever come near the surface again; and it is Gibraltar Current. The adventurous much more likely that, as Admiral Smyth Phoenicians, who are said to have traded suggests, they were sunk in one of the with the Casseterides for tin, long before lateral streams nearer shore the direceven the existence of Britain was known tion of which, under tidal influence, is peat Rome, must have experienced the oppo- riodically reversed—and that they were sition of this current in their outward pas- conveyed outwards by its agency. More sage through the Fretum Herculeum, and recently, however, the existence of an outhave welcomed its aid on their return; for ward under-current has been pronounced in the mid-channel of the strait it forms a impossible by such high authorities as stream of about four miles in width, con- Professor Buff* and Sir Charles Lyell,† stantly running eastwards; and its rate, on account of the obstacle supposed to be though subject to modification from winds presented by a ridge that crosses the and tides, averages at least two miles and channel at the western extremity of the a half an hour, or sixty miles a day. It is strait, between Capes Trafalgar and Sparobvious that the continual addition of such tel. "It was formerly believed," says a vast body of Atlantic water to the con- Professor Buff, "that there was an outtents of the Mediterranean basin would flow underneath answering to this inflow progressively raise the level of this inland at the surface; but later researches have sea but for some equivalent escape, unless, shown that the two coasts forming the as one bold speculator has recently sug- Straits of Gibraltar are connected by a gested, the bottom of the basin is subsid- reef of rocks reaching in many places ing at such a rate that the influx merely nearly up to the surface, while the sea on serves to keep up the level. The most di- both sides has a very great depth." And verse opinions have been entertained, Sir Charles Lyell has expressed himself however, as to the mode in which this no less confidently, to the effect that the withdrawal is effected. The idea of an existence of this ridge "has dispelled the outward under-current was suggested idea which was once popular, that there about two hundred years ago by a certain was a counter-current at a considerable Dr. Smith, of Oxford; on the basis of a fact commnnicated to him by an inteligent seaman, which proved the existence of a 563. "Physics of the Earth," p. 204. Principles of Geology," 10th ed., vol. i., p. |