THE GULF-STREAM. 



There is a river in the ocean. In the severest drouths it never fails, and in the mightiest flood it never overflows. Its banks and the bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. 

The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is the Arctic seas. It is the Gulf-Stream. There is in the world no other so majestic a flow of water. Its current is more swift than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than 1000 times greater. Its waters, so far as the Carolina coasts, are of indigo blue. They are so distinctly marked that the common seawater can be traced with the eye. Often one-half the vessel may be perceived floating in the Gulf-stream water, while the other half is in the common water of the sea, so sharp is the line and the want of affinity between these waters; and such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the part of those of the Gulf-Stream to mingle with the common waters of the sea. In addition to this, there is another peculiar fact. The fishermen on the coast of Norway are supplied with wood from the tropics by the Gulf Stream. 

Think of the Arctic fishermen burning upon their hearths the palms of Haiti, the mahogany of Honduras, and the precious woods of the Amazon and the Orinoco.