“A paper on the “Gulf Stream” was read by Mr. H. Culpin.

Allusion having been made to the various kinds of movement to which the main seas are subject, the “Gulf Stream” was described as the most important in its effects of the ocean currents.

The Atlantic equatorial currents were explained, and the course of the stream was then traced from the Gulf of Mexico along the North American coast to the neighbourhood of Newfoundland, from where, having lost its peculiar characteristics, it spreads as slow warm currents over the Atlantic, one branch bending southwards round the weed piled Sargasso sea, and the north eastern branch crossing by our own shores towards the coasts of Norway and Spitzbergen.

Its size, speed, temperature and deep blue colour were duly set forth; and particulars being given of the amount of heat it is estimated to carry with it, the beneficial effects upon our climate and that of north western Europe were fully entered into.

In the consideration of its causes prominence was given to the view which attributes it to the movements induced in the ocean by the interaction of the sun’s heat in warming and evaporating the tropical waters and the influence of the cold in the frigid zones increasing the density of the polar waters.

The paper concluded with a representation of the part the possible deflection southwards of the heated equatorial currents may have in the occurrence of the glacial periods.”