CHAPTER I

Summary

July. 20. 1841. — Sailed from Liverpool for Boston, U.S., in the steam-ship Acadia, which held her course as straight as an arrow from Cape Clear in Ireland to Halifax in Nova Scotia, making between 220 and 280 miles per day.

After the monotony of a week spent on the open sea, we were amused when we came near the great banks which extend from the southern point of Newfoundland, by the rapid passage of the steamer through alternate belts of stationary fog and clear spaces warmed and lighted up with bright sunshine. Looking at the dense fog from the intermediate sunny regions, we could hardly be persuaded that we were not beholding land, so distinct and well-defined was its outline, and such the varieties of light and shade, that some of our Canadian fellow-passengers compared it to the patches of cleared and uncleared country on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. These fogs are caused by the meeting, over the great banks, of the warm waters of the gulf stream flowing from the south, and colder currents, often charged with floating ice, from the north, by which very opposite states in the relative temperature of the sea and atmosphere are produced in spaces closely contiguous. In places where the sea is warmer than the air, fogs are generated.

When the eye has been accustomed for many days to the deep blue of the central Atlantic, the greener tint of the sea over the banks is refreshing.