The Ocean and Its Wonders
by R.M. Ballantyne
The cause of the Gulf Stream has long been a subject of conjecture and dispute among philosophers. Some have maintained that the Mississippi river caused it; but this theory is upset by the fact that the stream is salt--salter even than the sea--while the river is fresh. Besides, the volume of water emptied into the Gulf of Mexico by that river is not equal to the THREE THOUSANDTH PART of that which issues from it in the form of the Gulf Stream.