The Prehistoric World: or, Vanished Races, page 129 by E.A. Allen
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that North-western Europe owes its present mild climate to the influence of the Gulf Stream.<22> Ocean currents, then, are a most important element in determining the climate of a country. If we would take the case of our hypothetical polar continent again, and, instead of presenting a continuous coast line, imagine it penetrated by long straits and fiords, possessing numerous bays, large inland seas, and in general allowing a free communication with the ocean, we are very sure the effect would be widely different.
Under these circumstances, says Mr. Geikie, the "much wider extent of sea being exposed to the blaze of the tropical sun, the temperature of the ocean in equatorial regions would rise above what it is at present. This warm water, sweeping in broad currents, would enter the polar fiords and seas, and everywhere, beating the air, would cause warm, moist winds to blow athwart the land to a much greater extent than they do at present; and these winds thus distributing warmth and moisture, might render even the high latitude of North Greenland habitable by civilized man." So we see that it is necessary to look for such geographical changes as will interfere with the movements of marine currents.
Now, it is easy to see that comparatively small geographical changes would not only greatly interfere with these currents, but might even cause them to entirely change their course. An elevation of the northern part of North America, no greater in amount than is supposed to have taken place at the commencement of the Glacial Age, would bring the wide area of the banks of Newfoundland far above the water, causing the American coast to stretch out in an immense curve to a point more than six hundred miles east of Halifax, and this would divert much of the Gulf Stream straight across to the coast of Spain.<23>
Such an elevation certainly took place, and if continued westward, Behring's Strait would also have been closed. It is to such northern elevations, shutting out the warm ocean cu