502 CURRENTS AND WHALING. 



to the northward of the harbour. There is no difficulty in tracing 

 the connexion of this stream with that which we found setting to 

 the southwest, as before noted, near the Feejee Group, which being 

 thrown towards the coast of New South Wales by the South Polar 

 Stream, that meets its course obliquely, it also receives an accession of 

 strength from the waters that flow to the southwest on the west side 

 of New Guinea : ample proof of the existence of such a current is to 

 be found in the difficulty of passing to the eastward of the Barrier 

 Reefs. This stream is analogous to our Gulf Stream, although much 

 less remarkable, and is at times found to extend to the south of Van 

 Diemen's Land, the distance to which it prevails depending on the 

 strength of the Polar Current which opposes it. Thus, the French 

 frigate Venus met this stream to the south and east of Van Diemen's 

 Land, in the month of January, 1839, and was thirty-six hours in 

 passing through it. It more frequently turns into Bass's Straits, after 

 which it is lost in the sea to the west of Van Diemen's Land, or 

 mingles with the Polar Current. 



We experienced the effects of this stream as well after we left 

 Sydney as before our arrival there, but our course speedily led us 

 beyond its influence. The current which afterwards affected us on 

 our way south, set to the northward and eastward, and was found at 

 its greatest strength near Macquarie's Island, where its set amounted 

 to thirty miles in twenty-four hours. As we approached the Antarctic 

 Continent we gradually ceased to feel its effects, until upon the icy 

 barrier little or no current could be perceived along its whole extent. 

 Our means of observation partially failed us here, as has been 

 mentioned in the Narrative. It would appear, however, from a com- 

 parison of the position of the icy barrier as seen by us, with that 

 laid down by Captain Ross, after the lapse of a year, that there may 

 be a slight drift to the northwest, towards which direction the barrier 

 appears to have shifted in the interval. 



On the return of the Vincennes to the north, the northeasterly cur- 

 rent was again experienced, and particularly between the latitudes of 

 50° and 60° S. The Porpoise, whose track was to the eastward of 

 that of the Vincennes, found its direction more to the eastward than 

 we did. As we entered lower latitudes, we found it veering more 

 and more, until finally it became due north. 



Pursuing its course in the last-named direction, it strikes the 

 southern point of New Zealand, and forms currents on each side of 

 that country, which, however, are not constant. That branch which 



