GEE AT CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 



11 



tion of Africa ! But we see that it runs not west but north, 

 into the Bay of Bengal, and then passes to the east through 

 the Indian and Chinese Seas. This extensive oceanic current, 

 therefore, which directly crosses the equator, and which, in 

 the Indian and- Chinese Seas, runs eastward, and therefore 

 rotates faster eastward than the land, cannot be water left 

 behind by the land. 



But, it is in those parts of the world where the direction of 

 the oceanic currents changes with the season, that we have 

 the strongest proof of the errors of those writers who attri- 

 bute the currents to the rotatory motion of the earth. That 

 motion is always the same, quite independent of seasons, and 

 any effect really produced by it would be undisturbed by 

 changes in the seasons ; this would be more particularly the 

 case within the tropical regions, where the rotatory motion of 

 the surface of the earth is the most rapid. Now, over the 

 northern Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the China 

 Sea, the south-west monsoon prevails during summer, and 

 the north-east monsoon blows during the winter. And the 

 oceanic currents of these parts of the world are found to 

 obey, not the rotatory motion of the earth, as they should 

 according to the rotatory theory, but for the time the influ- 

 ence of the prevailing wind, — changing regularly with the 

 change of the season. Thus we are told by one writer that 

 *' between Cochin China and Malacca, when the western 

 monsoon blows, that is, from April to August, the current 

 sets eastward against the general motion. In like manner 

 for some months after the middle of February the currents 

 set from the Maldives towards India on the east, against the 

 general motion of the sea. Varinius says that at Java in the 

 Straits of Sunda, when the monsoon blows from the west, that 

 is, in the month of May, the currents set to the eastward con- 

 trary to the general motion. Between the islands of Celebes 

 and Madura, when the western monsoon sets in, that is, in 

 December, January, and February, or when the winds blow 



