OF THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO 267 
south basins, but these quiet areas are of small extent when com- 
pared with the well-known Sargasso Sea of the North Atlantic 
Ocean. 
Reference should here be made to the Northern Equatorial 
Current, which receives important contributions from the great 
stream that sweeps down the North Pacific coast of America. 
Many of the largest and most famous of the Hawaiian double 
canoes were hewn from Douglas spruce (Pseudotsuga taxifolia) 
which had been carried to the shores of Niihau, Kauai, and other 
islands by the currents. It is a well-known fact that the natives 
of the Alaska islands obtain much of their fire-wood as drift 
from the Asiatic coast. Japanese fishing-boats, at various times 
in history, have drifted to the Hawaiian Islands and to the north- 
west coast of America. 
Between the two great equatorial currents flowing westward 
on either side of the equator there is a narrow counter-equatorial 
current flowing to the east. This stream is largely assisted during 
the latter half of the year by the southwest monsoon, and from 
July to October the southwest winds prevailing east of 150° E. 
further strengthen the current, but later in the year the easterly 
winds weaken or even destroy it. The currents of the South 
Pacific are well shown in Schimper’s (’91) monograph of the Indo- 
Malayan strand flora. 
_ A feature of ocean currents as seed carriers that has not been 
sufficiently emphasized is the definiteness of their courses. This — 
fact is well illustrated by the large number of tree trunks and logs 
from the North Pacific coast that are annually cast upon the 
Hawaiian coasts. These trees occur in a relatively small and well- 
defined region, and evidently follow a definite course across the 
North Pacific. _Wood-Jones (’12) performed an interesting ex- 
periment to determine the course of drift material in the Indian 
Ocean. He cast adrift, in the Cocos-Keeling Islands, bottles 
containing messages. One was picked up on the beach of Brava, 
Italian Somaliland, after a journey of three thousand miles across 
the Indian Ocean, and a second one, sent out nearly a year later, 
was washed ashore at precisely the same place. This definiteness 
of course gives to the ocean currents a high potential cumulative 
effect as carriers, that merits more than passing mention. 
