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 



vol. v. 2P2 60 



