504 CURRENTS AND WHALING. 



arrival off these islands. A strong current also sets to the eastward, 

 on the southern side of the Feejee Group. I had here to regret the 

 loss of our deep-sea sounding apparatus, the importance of which in 

 detecting the presence of cold submarine streams previous experience 

 had satisfied me. I felt, however, convinced that the Feejee currents 

 arose from them as a cause, and my views were corroborated by the 

 fact that the Peacock on her voyage from Sydney to Tongataboo had 

 been affected by northerly currents. 



I have mentioned cases in which the Polynesian Islands were occa- 

 sionally affected by the remarkable phenomenon of a sudden rush of 

 waters. I am inclined to ascribe this phenomenon to the action of a 

 polar current encountering obstructions at the several groups, for I 

 know of no other cause so likely to produce such results ; and it will 

 have been seen that the sides of the islands that were most affected, 

 were those that would have been exposed to the full violence of a 

 stream setting from a higher to a low latitude, while the action on the 

 opposite side was either much diminished or wholly insensible. 



After leaving the Feejee Group, we did not experience any current 

 until we reached the latitude of 8° S., and there only in separate 

 impulses. We then experienced currents for three or four days, 

 whose united effects amounted to no more than twenty or thirty miles, 

 in a direction about south by west. In passing the Phoenix Group 

 we experienced a variable current ; and little seems to exist there at 

 the season when we passed it ; but in the following January, when the 

 Peacock was at this group, a current was found setting to the west- 

 ward, which was lost on passing a degree or two to the south. In 

 this voyage of the Peacock, a space in the ocean was traversed re- 

 markable for its elevated temperature, which was as high as 89°. 

 The waters of this space, therefore, do not enter into the general cir- 

 culation. This position will be seen upon the map, marked in deep 

 red, and may be compared with the similar nuclei in the North 

 Atlantic and near the Cape de Verdes. 



On our route to the northward we crossed a stream setting to the 

 westward, which extends as far west as the Kingsmill Group, between 

 the latitudes of 2° S. and 3° N., after leaving which we encountered 

 another, setting with equal velocity to the east, between the latitudes 

 of 4° and 9° N. This last tropical counter-current was traced by 

 us between the same parallels, nearly across the Pacific, from the 

 longitude of 170° E., to the longitude of 138° W. We had no oppor- 

 tunity of ascertaining ourselves whether it exists to the westward 

 of the Mulgrave Islands, but Horsburgh and several other authorities 



