Outlines of a mechanical theory of storms : $b containing the true law of lunar influence, with practical instructions to the navigator, to enable him approximately to calculate the coming changes of the wind and weather, for any given day, and for any part of the oceanBassnett, Thomas
Science
Outlines of a mechanical theory of storms : $b containing the true law of lunar influence, with practical instructions to the navigator, to enable him approximately to calculate the coming changes of the wind and weather, for any given day, and for any part of the ocean
Bassnett, Thomas
Weather
We have already alluded to the difference of level between the Atlantic
and Pacific waters. It is well known that the currents in the
Spitzbergen and Greenland seas is to the southward, and that Parry, in
his attempt to reach the pole, was foiled by this very current,
frequently setting him back in twenty-four hours more than his party
could travel in the same time over the ice. Through Baffin's and
Hudson's bay the northern waters are also continually bearing their
frozen freight southward. We are, therefore, entitled to ask, what
supplies this immense drain? Behring's straits are only about sixty
miles wide, and twenty-five fathoms deep; the supply, therefore, through
this channel is totally inadequate, yet there is no other channel into
the Arctic sea where the current is inward. We have already explained
the reason why the current through Behring's straits is an exception to
the general rule, yet still confirming the principle by referring it to
the configuration of the land enclosing the Pacific ocean. The whole
south Pacific lies open to the pole, and the inertia of the immense mass
of mobile waters pressing northward, and continually contracted by the
form of the American and Asiatic coasts, is not balanced by a contrary
impulse of the waters of the north Pacific, inasmuch as this ocean
becomes narrower as it extends northward, and the only passage to the
frozen ocean is through the narrow straits of Behring. The axifugal
force of rotation due to the northern waters is, therefore, overborne
by the vast preponderance due to the southern waters, and, hence, the
northern Pacific may be considered as relatively at a higher level, and
there will be a current northward through Behring's straits, as we find
it. The same cause accumulates the waters under the equator, thus giving
a higher level to the Pacific than to the Atlantic at the isthmus of
Panama, where the difference of level is found by actual measurement to
be five or six feet. This fact has never before been explained; but the
cause is too obvious to admit of question.
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