CUKRENT OBSERVATIONS. 131 



are not unfrequently experienced in the vicinity of the Hawaiian 

 Islands, and to the north-eastward. The charts of December, 

 January, February, and March have not the characteristic features 

 referred to above, but bear traces of an interruption in the north- 

 east Trade Drift, and of an occasional set to the northward. 



Following our track between the thirtieth and fortieth parallels, 

 the direction of the surface currents are found to vary according 

 to the direction of the wind, but they shew a southerly tendency. 

 The January and December charts record north-east currents and 

 the strong south-west winds which prevail between November and 

 the latter end of February lead us to anticipate this. From the 

 fortieth parallel to within about six miles off Cape Flattery, where 

 the counter current setting to the northward obtains, the set 

 experienced is always to the southward and eastward, excepting 

 when checked by winds from south-west and south-east which 

 blow with great violence during the winter months. During these 

 months the main position of the centre of the north Pacific anti- 

 cyclone is situated in about thirty degrees north and one hundred 

 and thirty-eight degrees west, the pressure to the northward of 

 the forty-fifth parallel is low, for the whole of the north Pacific 

 and cyclonic systems traverse that ocean from west to east often 

 in quick succession, and under similar conditions as are found to 

 exist in the North Atlantic. In December last during a hard 

 south-east gale, the mercurial (Board of Trade) barometer standing 

 as low as 28*90, a strong set to the north-westward was experienced 

 from a position about three hundred miles south-west by west of 

 Cape Flattery to the Straits of Juan de Fuca. 



At no distant date I understand the Admiralty will publish 

 current charts for the Pacific Ocean for different seasons, if not 

 for each month of the year, and then these records of ocean 

 currents, the study of which at times has seemed to me like the 

 perusal of some stray fragments of a torn up document, will have 

 complete contexture, and it will be known whether the theories 

 adopted by me in their interpretation are correct or otherwise, 

 but in the meantime I shall venture to hope they may be of some 

 interest to those who are interested in such matters, and of some 

 value to those whose lot it is to navigate these tracts of the North 

 and South Pacific Oceans with which it deals. 



