Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, on the cession of Russian America to the United States:

29
and had been before in Hudson bay, on the
other side of the continent. says still more
explicitly that"'the climate of this coast appeared to him infinitely,milder than that of
Hudson bay in the same latitude, and that the
pines which he had measured here were much
larger." (Voyage, vol. 2, p. 187.) Langsdorf,
when at Sitka in 1806, records that Mr. John
D. Wolf, a citizen of the United States, who
had passed the winter at the settlement, "is
much surprised at finding the cold less severe
than at Boston, Rhode Island, and other Provinces of the United States which lie more to the
South." (Voyages, vol. 2, p. 101.)
All this is now explained by certain known
forces in nature. Of these the most important
is a thermal current in the Pacific, corresponding to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. The
latter, having its origin in the' heated waters
of the Gulf of Mexico, flows as a river through
the ocean northward, encircling England, bathi ng Nor way, and wa rming all within its influence. A similar stream in the Pacific, sometimes called the Japanes e current, having its
o rigin und er the equator near the Philippines
and the Malaccas, ami d no common heats,
after washing the an cient empire of Japan
sweeps n orthward until, forming two branches;h
on e m oves onward to Behring straits -and the
other bend s eas tward along the Aleutian islands, and then southward alo ng the coast of
Sitka, Oregon, and California. Geographers
]l ave described th is "heater," which in the
l ower latitude s isa as high as 81~ of Fahrenheit,
and even far to the nor th it is as high as 50~.
A c har t now before m e in Findlay's P acific
Ocean Directory portrays its course as it
warms so many islands and such an extent of
coast. An off icer of t he United States Navy,a
Lieut enant Bent, in a paper b ef ore the Geographi cal Soc iety of New York, while exhibiti ng th e influence of thi s current in mitigating
the clima te of the n or thwes t coast, mentions
tha t v essels on the Asiatic side, becomin g unwieldy with a ccumulati ons of ice on the hull
an d rigging, run over to the higher latitude on
the Am eri can s id e and "thaw out." But the
tepid waters w hich mel t t he ie on a vessel
mus t c hange the atmosphere wherever they
flow.
I hop e y ou will no t rega rd the illustration
as too familiar if I re mind you that in the
economy of a household pipes of hot water are
sometimes employed in tempering the atmosphere by heat carried from below to rooms
above. In the economy of nature these thermal currents are only pipes of hot water, modifying the climate of continents by carrying
heat from the warm cisterns of the South into
the most distant places of the north. So also
there are sometimes pipes of hot air, having a
similar p.urpose; and these, too, are found in
this region. Every ocean wind, from every
quarter, as it traverses the stream of heat,
takes up the warmth and carries it to the
coast, 80 that the oceanic current is reienforced
by an aerial current of constant influence..~
But thesae forces are aided essent ially by the
configuration of the northwest coast, with a
lofty and impenetrable barricade of mountains,
by which its islands a nd harbors are protected
from the cold of the north. Occupying t he
Aleutian is lands, traversing the peni nsula of
Alaska, and r unning a lon g the margin of the
'ocean to the latitude o f 54~ 40', this muntain
ridge is a climatic division, or, according to a
German geographer, a IIclimatic shed," such
as perhaps eoists ntowhere else in the world.
Here are Alps, some of them volcanic, with
Mo unt St. Elias higher than Mont Blanc,
standing on guard against the Ar ctic Circle.
So it seems even with out the aid o f science.
Here is a dike be tween t he icy waters of Behr ing sea and the milder Sotheher n ocean. Here
is a partition between the treeless norther n
coast and the wo oded coast of the Kenaians
and Kolowchians. Here is a fen ce which se p~arates the a ni mal kingdom of this regions-leav ing on-one side the walrus and ice-fo~:ifrom
the Frozen ocean and on the other side the
humming bird from the tropics. I simply
repeat the statements of geography. And now
you will not fail t o observe how by this c onfiguration the thermal currents o f oce an and air
are left to exercise all their climatic power.
There is one other climatic incident here,
which is now easily explained. Early navigators record the prevailing moisture. All are
enveloped in fog. Behring names an island
Foggy. Another gives the same designation
to a cape at the southern extremity of Rus sian America. Cook records fog. La Pfrouse
speaks of continued rain and fog in the month
of August. And now visitors, whether for
science or business, make the same report.
The forests testify also. According to Physical
Geography it could not be otherwise. The
warm air from the ocean encountering the
snow-capped mountains would naturally produce this result. Rain is nothing but atmosphere condensed and falling in drops to the
earth. Fog-is atmosphere still held in solution,
but so far condensed as to become visible.
This condensation occurs when the air is chilled
by contact with a colder atmosphere. Now,
these very conditions occur on the northwest
coast. The ocean air, as it comes in contact
with the elevated range, is chilled until its
moisture is set free.
Add to these influences, especially as regards Sitka, the presence of mountain masses
and of dense forests, all tending to make this
coast warmer in winter and colder in summer
than it would otherwise be.
Practical observation has verified these conclusions of science. Any isothermal map is
enough for our purpose; but there are others
which show the relative conditions generally
of different portions of the globe. I ask
attention to those of Keith Johnston, in his
admirable atlas. But I am glad to present a
climatic table of the Pacific coast in comparison with the Atlantic coast, which has been
recently compiled, at my request, from the