Painting by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 — 1898). This image has been released to the public by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[The Gulf Stream] is a river in the ocean...of cold water...[with a] current...of warm water — [whose] majestic flow....is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon [Rivers].

Matthew Fontaine Maury — American Astronomer, Naval Officer, Historian, Oceanographer, Meteorologist, Cartographer, Author, Geologist, and Educator (1806 — 1873).