BY R. VON LENDENFELD, PH.D. 423 



The warm equatorial currents which flow westwards from the 

 20th degree latitude north, send out many branches towards the 

 south. Whilst a pax-t of the chief current only just touches Point 

 Albany, the north point of Australia, two of the branches 

 flowing south follow the coast line. 



A mighty stream flows_ clown in a south-westerly direction, east 

 of New Zealand, and washes the eastern coast of the New 

 Zealand islands. A second warm equatorial current branches off 

 from the principle stream flowing west, north-east of the New 

 Hebrides, passes New Caledonia and forming towards the west a 

 convex course, bends towards the smith and later on to east-south- 

 east. This current joins the one mentioned above near the 

 Macquarie Island. It washes the east coast of Australia for 

 many hundred kilometers, and only leaves it at Port Jarvis, 130 

 kilometers south of Sydney. 



This is the current which crosses the cold one flowing from 

 Tasmania towards New Zealand. As mentioned before it flows 

 above the cold current and divides it in this way into two 

 streams, an eastern and a western. 



LOCAL CURRENTS. 



Besides the currents, often very strong (1), caused by the 

 winds, which change irregularly with the time of the year, there 

 are also constant currents of a local kind which it is best to 

 consider as branches of the equatorial and polar chief currents. 

 The direction and strength of such currents depend on the 

 configuration of the floor of the ocean and the line of coast. 



One branch of the equatorial stream that washes the east coast 

 of Australia leaves its convex side in the latitude of Bass' Straits 



(1.) Once on a voyage from Cape Van Diemen, the most northern point of 

 New Zealand, to Sydney, I remarked how strong such currents might 

 become, for as the steamer approached the east coast of Australia it was 

 driven 35 kilometers southwards, by a current which is usuallv not there. 

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