THE WINDS OF THE OCEAN 75 



west winds below 40 S. Then the Australian land 

 interposes its mass up to the equator, the whole of its 

 coasts subject to violent gales, eddies from the south, 

 where the almost perpetual westerlies sweep along 

 unhindered. In this stormy character of its coast 

 Australia differs entirely from South America, which, 

 from 40 S., at least, to the equator, is practically 

 galeless, heavy winds, except for an occasional squall, 

 being almost unknown. Proceeding further north, the 

 eastern side of the East Indian archipelago compares 

 fairly well with the chain of the Antilles in the North 

 Atlantic, but there is an important difference between 

 the two that will at once strike the observer. The 

 West Indies stretch across the entrance to a gulf 

 whose remote extremity is blocked by land entirely, 

 the East Indian archipelago being distributed over an 

 ocean through which the wind may freely blow and 

 does; for the north-east and south-west monsoons of 

 the Indian oceans extend far into the Pacific, beiug 

 felt in the meridian of 150 E., while a north-west 

 monsoon, ranging from 10 N. to 10 S., and em- 

 bracing with its influence the three great islands of 

 Borneo, Celebes, and New Guinea, with their multi- 

 tudinous offshoots, stretches as far as 160 E. Such 

 a phenomenon is unknown in the South Atlantic, 

 where the North-East Trades dominate the whole of 

 the West Indies, except for local variations, never 

 extending far from land. And on the other side of 

 the ocean, where the mighty mountain chain of the 

 Andes extends through fifty degrees of latitude, there 

 is entirely wanting that peaceful sameness of wind 

 and weather which obtains in the corresponding 

 region of the South Atlantic, bounded as it is by the 



