The Mississippi River empties a great quantity of water into the Gulf of Mexico. Other rivers and streams also empty their water into the Gulf, making a tremendous amount being continually added. If all this water didn’t have a means of escape, it would have flooded all the land surrounding the Gulf long ago.
So where does all the water go after it empties into the Gulf? The western side of the Gulf is bounded by the shores of Texas and Mexico, so there is just one direction left open -eastward below Florida, and that’s where it flows.
Moving at about four miles an hour (the same speed as a fast walker), this tremendous flow of water is first called the Florida current, but farther along it is called the Gulf Stream or “the warm ocean current of the North Atlantic.” In some places it flows as fast as 138 miles a day, and any given amount of this current takes many months to travel its full route.
After swinging around the bottom of Florida, the islands of Cuba and the Bahamas are in its path, causing it to turn north and travel along the United States’ coastline, on up to the New England states, then to the maritime provinces of Canada. By that time it is much wider than when it started. Then swinging northeast, it passes Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where the cold water of the Labrador Sea flows into it, making quite a change in the temperature of the Gulf Stream. Finally, flowing into the North Atlantic waters below Iceland it loses its identity, although its current and warming effect can be felt as far away as Norway and Spain.
All this flow of water, finally spreading out and mixing with the great North Atlantic Ocean, is a partial answer to why “the sea is not full” as stated in the opening Bible verse. But a more interesting reason is that the Creator has arranged continual evaporation from the surfaces of all oceans, lakes and rivers that equals the amount of water that rivers, rain and snow add to it.
Evaporation is mainly what forms clouds. Just the right amount of water is drawn back again into the skies, forming clouds, to later drop as snow, rain and hail for the benefit of all God’s creation. And this is just what the second part of the verse says, “From whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” The evaporation and returning moisture have balanced out perfectly through all the centuries of the world’s history, because they are so ordered by God who has created them.
In our next issue we will look at some of the benefits the Gulf Stream carries with it.
(to be continued)
ML-03/05/2006