Prevailing Currents of the Pacific Ocean. 301 
been found in various parts of the Pacific, below the latitude of 
30°, moving in direct opposition to the influence of the strongest 
portion of the trade winds.* Thus the system of currents, as 
we shall find of the winds, becomes more complex and irregular 
in this vast ocean than in the Atlantic; which, at least so far as 
relates to winds, is contrary to representations which have been 
often erroneously made by scientific writers; representations 
which doubtless were founded in general reasonings on the calo- 
rific theory of winds. 
Good observations on the direction, strength, and temperature 
of the currents, in all parts of the Pacific, will prove of great im- 
portance, and should be made and registered, most carefully, by 
the expedition. 
The obstacles which thus modify the natural system of cur- 
rents are least numerous in the North Pacific, where the trending 
of its continental coasts, except in high latitudes, is highly favor- 
able to a strong development of the regular geographical currents, 
near to these coasts. Hence, on the coasts of China and Japan 
we find a current which fully represents the Gulf Stream of the 
Atlantic. 'This current, I find, was frequently noticed, inciden- 
tally, by the officers of Cook’s last exploring expedition, and its 
velocity stated, in some instances, at five miles an hour. Other 
observations, to which I have had access, have confirmed the 
existence of this current, and have shown the elevated tempera- 
ture which this stream carries from the lower latitudes; so that 
near one thousand miles east of the coast of Japan, in lat. 41° 
north, the temperature of the surface water has been found at 
793° of Fahrenheit.t In the South Pacific, near the coast of 
New Holland there is found, also, a like warm current, pursuing 
its southern circuit, through the higher latitudes of that hemis- 
phere. 
But owing as I apprehend, to the great width of the Pacific, 
and to the consequent absence of a defined ocean boundary near 
its central meridians, there is here less of apparent regularity and 
* This counter current, running to the eastward, is sometimes found in the equa- 
torial regions of the Pacific and other seas, and bears some analogy to the wester- 
ly monsoons of the Indian and Pacific oceans. 
t Voyage of Capt. Dupetit Thouars. Other and earlier observations had attract- 
ed my attention, particularly in the cruising voyages of our American whalers, 
but I now refer to this as a more recent and convenient authority. 
