Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 by Various
page 35 of 313 (11%)
page 35 of 313 (11%)
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striking Padre Island, an island upon the coast of Texas, about
one hundred and forty miles this current strikes, there are very deep soundings, almost up with the land. South of this point, upon the beach, are found mahogany and other tropical drift-wood, brought there from the tropics; while north of it the drift wood is oak, ash, and cotton-wood, brought from the north by a current running counter to the Gulf stream, which I will hereafter describe. From Padre Island the Gulf stream strikes off to the north-east to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence around the coast of Florida and through her keys, until it joins the other branch. Inside the Gulf stream, along the coast of Texas, is the counter-current before referred to, making down the coast at the rate of two to three miles per hour, and bringing down the silt and mud of the Mississippi, Sabine, etc. I have seen the water off the Island of Galveston the color of chocolate, after a long norther. Above the centre of Padre Island the coast of Texas deepens at the rate of about a fathom to the mile, until at twenty fathoms there is a coral reef, and on the easterly side of this reef the water deepens, as by the side of a perpendicular wall, to a very great depth. This reef marks the boundary of the Gulf stream, and also the boundary of the terrible tornado. The tornado of the Gulf of Mexico never passes this barrier, never strikes the land, nor has it been known within memory of man upon the coast. It seems to confine itself to the course of the warm water of the stream, and the great 'Father of the Waters' spreads his counter-current down the coast of Texas, like a long flowing garment, fending off the storm and the whirlwind, and thus still |
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