230 H. C. RUSSELL. 



CURRENT PAPERS No. 3. 



By H. C. Russell, b.a., c.m.g., f.r.s. 



[With Plates X., XI.] 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, October 5, 1898.^ 



In two previous papers, I have recorded two hundred current papers 

 and this paper adds another one hundred and sixty-seven to my 

 list. The first list contained forty-three papers which had come 

 to me direct. The second list contained one hundred and fifty- 

 seven, of which ninety-three had come to me direct, and sixty- 

 four were given to me for publication. Since the publication of 

 the second list, the papers which follow have come in, and many 

 of them are of great interest. These three essays have been 

 published at intervals of two years; the first on October 9, 1894, 

 the second on September 2, 1896, and this one on October 5, 1898. 

 During the past two years north-west winds have been very pre- 

 valent, and they are always a hindrance to the receipt of current 

 papers, because they blow them away from the south coast of 

 Australia. 



Reference was made in No. 2 pamphlet to the rapid drift 16*8 

 miles per day in the Indian Ocean of current paper No. 56. This 

 time we have seven papers in that sea, and their average rate of 

 drift is 12-2 miles per day, and one No. 258 made 16*9 miles per 

 day ; probably with all these papers there was considerable delay 

 in reporting the finding of them. 



It may be mentioned here, that in the Indian Ocean the rate 

 of drift falls off rapidly going north to the equator ; and north of 

 the equator the drift is towards the west. 



In the following charts each current paper track has in addition 

 to its number the daily rate of drift which the paper made, and 

 the experience gained with this lot of papers bears out that of 

 No. 2 essay, viz., that the rate of drift increases as you go south 



