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 the cold towards the south. There are similar currents in the Pacific, but they are neither so large nor so regular as those of the Atlantic, owing to the wide formation of the basin of the former sea.

The effect of the Gulf Stream on climate is very great. The dreary fur-trading establishment of York Factory, on the shores of Hudson's Bay, is surrounded by a climate of the most rigorous character—the thermometer seldom rising up so high as zero during many months, and often ranging down so low as 50° below zero, sometimes even lower, while the winter is seven or eight months long: the lakes and rivers are covered with ice upwards of six feet thick, and the salt sea itself is frozen. Yet this region lies in the same latitude with Scotland, York Factory being on the parallel of 57° north, which passes close to Aberdeen! The difference in temperature between the two places is owing very much, if not entirely, to the influence of the Gulf Stream.

Starting from its caldron in the Gulf of Mexico, it carries a freight of caloric towards the North Atlantic. Owing partly to the diurnal motion of the Earth on its axis, its flow trends towards the east; hence its warm waters embrace our favoured coasts, and ameliorate our climate, while the eastern sea-bord of North America is left, in winter, to the rigour of unmitigated frost.

But besides the powerful influence of this current on climate, it exerts a very considerable influence