The Gulf Stream

The effect of the gulf stream in inoderating the climate of the north Atlantic is well known, and the possible effect upun the stream of an artificial water passage across the isthmus of Panama has often been the subject of speculation. In the Popular Science Monthly for February Prof. James Geikie, the eminent English geologist, argües that any fears of the stream's being diverted from its present course by Panama cañáis or other artificial means is absurd. Nothing short of an absolute sinking of the isthmus that now divides the waters of thejGulf of Mexico from the Pacific coufd have such an effect. The gulf stream at its narrowest point is 30 miles wide and 1,950 feet deep. The amount of heat conveyed into the north Atlantic by this stream is equal to that of a stream 50 miles broad and 1,000 feet deep, flowing at the rate of four miles an hour and having a mean temperature of 65 degrees. The stoppage of the stream would depri ve the Atlantic of a quantityof heat equal to nearly one-half of all that is received directly from the sun by that área. The Scandinavian península would, Prof. Geikie thinks, become uninhabitable, while the shores of Great Britain would be ice-bound for the greater part of the year. Polar currents flowing southward would cover the Atlantic, and the prevailing winds passing across it and over Europe would bring the belt of arctic snows and glaciers well down toward the Mediterranean. That the gulf stream has at some time been much greater than at present, giving northern Europe an almost tropical climate, Prof. Geikie thinks there is conclusivo evidence to prove. Also that at some time, certainly within the human epoch, there was no gulf stream, and the climate of Europe was arctic. But these changes in the stream were due to atronomical causes, the chief of which is the peiïodic increase and decrease in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. As the uext period of high eccentricity does not occur for many thousands of years, the gulf stream must continue to flow ín its present direction and without perceptible change for many ages. To give an outlet for the stream into the Pacific the whole Isthmus of Darien would have to be sunk to a depth of from 800 to 1,000 feet, an accident not at all likely to occur. The professor puts the case strongly when he says: "The great work of the famous French engineer will have as muoh effe on the gulf stream and the climate of north western Europe as the emptying of a teapot f uil of boiling water into the Arctic ocean would have in raising the annual temperature of Greenland." War Clouds in Europe. - Europe is nervous and excited. Though outwardly ealm she trembles at every sign of disturbance. A bully on the Nile sets England and France in a flurry; a raid of Arab maraujjers excites Spain against her neighbors across the Pyrenees; a sale of Italian newspapers to a Frenchman rouses the wrath of Rome. If Mme. Adam goes to St. Petersburg, M. Gambetta to Genoa, or General Skobeloff to Paris, they are supposed to be intrusted with missions of peace or war. Amid this general tremor Austria and Russia stand facing each other as though they had nearly resolved to fight off old grudges. They are both racked with internal dissensions, the rulers of both are threatened by a fierce democratie spirit, and any means of postponing domestic strife would be welcomed by both Romanoff and Hapsburg. Austria, therefore, discovers on the Montenegrin frontier some military maps written inllussian; she arrests Panslavist agitators who have correspondents at Mosco w; she sees Russian agents everywhere at work in the Balkans, laying the powder train from Belgrade to Cattaro. That these regions are mined in places the Ilerzegovinan rebellion shows; but at present the explosives lie widely apart and are not likely to set Europe in a general conflagration. The British army, aecording to the last animal return, consisted of 281,233 men of all ranks and branches. Of ihese 123,158 were English, and 96,880 wwe lrish.