The Ocean and its Wonders | Page 9

to them are often thrown on their beam-ends, even though all sail has been previously taken in. Generally speaking, however, the immediate effect of wind passing either lightly or furiously over the sea is to raise its surface into waves. But these waves, however large they may be, do not affect the waters of the ocean more than a few yards below its surface. The water below their influence is comparatively calm, being affected only by ocean currents.
The tides of the sea--as the two great flowings and ebbings of the water every twenty-four hours are called--are caused principally by the attractive influence of the moon, which, to a small extent, lifts the waters of the ocean towards it, as it passes over them, and thus causes a high wave. This wave, or current, when it swells up on the land, forms high tide. When the moon's influence has completely passed away, it is low tide. The moon raises this wave wherever it passes; not only in the ocean directly under it, but, strange to say, it causes a similar wave on the opposite side of the globe. Thus there are two waves always following the moon, and hence the two high tides in the twenty-four hours. This second wave has been accounted for in the following way: The cohesion of particles of water is easily overcome. The moon, in passing over the sea, separates the particles by her attractive power, and draws the surface of the sea away from the solid globe. But the moon also attracts the earth itself, and draws it away from the water on its opposite side thus causing the high wave there, as represented in the diagram, figure 1.
The sun has also a slight influence on the tides, but not to such an extent as the moon. When the two luminaries exert their combined influence in the same direction, they produce the phenomenon of a very high or spring-tide, as in figure 2, where the tide at a and b has risen extremely high, while at c and d it has fallen correspondingly low. When they act in opposition to each other, as at the moon's quarter, there occurs a very low or neap-tide. In figure 3 the moon has raised high tide at a and b, but the sun has counteracted its influence to some extent at c and d, thus producing neap-tides, which neither rise so high nor fall so low as do other tides. Tides attain various elevations in different parts of the world, partly owing to local influences. In the Bristol Channel the tide rises to nearly sixty feet, while in the Mediterranean it is extremely small, owing to the landlocked nature of that sea preventing the tidal wave from having its full effect. Up some gulfs and estuaries the tides sweep with the violence of a torrent, and any one caught by them on the shore would be overtaken and drowned before he could gain the dry land. In the open sea they rise and fall to an elevation of little more than three or four feet.
The value of the tides is unspeakable. They sweep from our shores pollution of every kind, purify our rivers and estuaries, and are productive of freshness and health all round the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The gentlemen here referred to are agreed as to the fact of systematic arrangement of currents, though they differ in regard to some of the causes thereof and other matters.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE GULF STREAM--ITS NATURE--CAUSE--ILLUSTRATION--EFFECT OF SMALL POWERS UNITED--ADVENTURES OF A PARTICLE OF WATER--EFFECT OF GULF STREAM ON CLIMATE--ITS COURSE--INFLUENCE ON NAVIGATION--SARGASSO SEA--SCIENTIFIC EFFORTS OF PRESENT DAY--WIND AND CURRENT CHARTS--EFFECTS ON COMMERCE-- CAUSE OF STORMS--INFLUENCE OF GULF STREAM ON MARINE ANIMALS.
Of the varied motions of the sea, the most important, perhaps, as well as the most wonderful, is the Gulf Stream. This mighty current has been likened by Maury to a "river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. It takes its rise in the Gulf of Mexico (hence its name), and empties into the arctic seas. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater."
This great current is of the most beautiful indigo-blue colour as far out as the Carolina coasts; and its waters are so distinctly separated from those of the sea, that the line of demarcation may be traced by the eye. Its influences on the currents of the sea, and on the climates and the navigation of the world, are so great and important, that we think a somewhat particular account of it cannot fail to interest the reader.
The waters of the Gulf