_The Gulf Stream._—The current most generally known is the Gulf Stream, flowing partly from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, partly from outside of the same along the chain of the Lesser Antilles, along the southeast coast of the United States (Florida, Georgia and South Carolina); but owing to its greater rotational velocity it is soon, like the winds of the same latitudes, deflected from a northward to a NE. course, which carries it away from the American coast, to impart some of its warmth, (probably mainly through the winds that blow over it), to Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia, and Western Europe generally; while the northern American coast is left to be bathed by the icy polar current flowing from the Arctic through Baffin’s Bay, which carries icebergs far to the south in the way of the transatlantic traffic between the Eastern States and Europe, and causes a difference in climate that is well exemplified in the comparison of the climate of New York with that of Naples, both lying in the same latitude; and similarly of the bleak coast of Labrador with that of Great Britain. _The Japan Stream._—On the eastern Asiatic Coast, a warm current originating in the Sunda seas, flows off the coasts of the Philippines and of China and bathes the Japanese islands; hence it is known as the Japanese Current, or Kuro-siro. It is partly this current which, failing to pass into the Arctic through the shallow waters of Behring strait, renders the coast climates of the northwest coast of America so much milder and moister than is that in corresponding latitudes on the east coasts of both continents. Alaska corresponds to Norway in its moist, foggy and relatively mild coast climate; British Columbia, Washington and Oregon participate in the benefits of the tempering influence of the return current of the Kuro-siro. But as this return (“Alaska”) current passes southward into the warmer seas off the California coast, its influence is reversed; it becomes a cold current in the warm waters of the Pacific, and the warm, moist air of the ocean being carried by the westerly winds across this cold stream which flows along the shore of California, in summer dense fogs are formed, which render navigation difficult and produce a coast climate whose average summer and winter temperatures (_e. g._ at San Francisco) may differ by only a few degrees, viz., 15.5 and 13.0° C. (60 and 56° F.); so that a change of clothing from season to season is hardly called for. The Alaska Current leaves the immediate coast of California off Pt. Conception near Santa Barbara, gradually losing itself southwestward, but still tempering the tropical heat in the Hawaiian Islands. Hence the coast climate is much warmer and less foggy in southern California; but throughout the State in the interior valleys, screened from the coast winds by the Coast ranges, the temperature in summer may rise several degrees above 100° F. for days together; although, owing to the