CURRENTS AND WHALING. 
473 
vessels bound to Sydney, should make their land fall 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 comparison 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 flows on the 
western side appears to be the strongest, and is felt as far to the north 
2P2 60 
VOL. v. 
