he answered, with
one of his odd winks, giving a quizzical glance at Mr Marline, as if
telling me he thought he had shut him up for the time; "then I shall be
better able to tell you. However, as we've been running twelve knots an
hour good since four bells in the first watch, we ought to have made
over a hundred miles or so from our last stopping place."

"And where shall we get to if we continue running on the same as now?"
I next inquired, thinking of what Mr Marline had said.

"To the Banks of Newfoundland, I suppose, if the same wind holds; but,
I'm of opinion that we'll have a change as soon as we fetch the Gulf
Stream, when we shall be able to shape a straight course for the
Channel."

"And what is the Gulf Stream, captain?" I then asked.

"Bless the boy!" he exclaimed, "I never saw such a chap for questions;
why, you're almost as bad as Mr Marline! Well, if you must know, the
Gulf Stream, or `Florida Current' as it is frequently called, is
something very like a river of warm water, some eighty to three hundred
miles wide, flowing through the surrounding ocean from the Gulf of
Mexico to Europe in a circular nor'-east by east direction. Starting
from between the Dry Tortugas and Cuba, it skirts the eastern shores of
the United States, then passing across the Atlantic to the south of the
Banks of Newfoundland, where it branches off into two currents in mid
ocean, near the Azores. One of these streams steers north, along the
shores of Norway, while the other leg sweeps onward to the English
Channel, circling round the Bay of Biscay and then pursuing a southerly
course along the Spanish coast until it meets the great equatorial
current coming up from the south Atlantic. Uniting now with this, the
double current flows back westwards to the place of its birth, only to
renew its onward course again from the Caribbean Sea."

"But what causes it?" I said.

"Well, that is a disputed point," replied the captain. "One authority
says that the Gulf Stream `is caused by the motion of the sun in the
ecliptic,' and I think there is a good deal of reason in this. Another
philosopher puts it down to the influence of the anti-trade and passage
winds blowing from the west to the east along the zone in which the
stream travels; and I think much might be said about that argument,
especially as the westerly current south of the tropic of Cancer is
undoubtedly caused by the trade-wind. A third scientific gentleman
ascrib