296 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



of Albany, two reached South-east Australia to the eastward of 

 Melbourne, and one, already mentioned, rounded the south-east 

 corner of the island continent and reached Cape York, the most 

 northerly point of Queensland. The figurehead of the Blue Jacket, 

 a ship that was burned between the Falkland Islands and Cape 

 Horn in lat. 53° S. and 60° W. in March 1869, was recovered at the 

 beginning of 1872 at Fremantle in West Australia. This is the only 

 " drift record " at my disposal that illustrates the branching north 

 from the West Wind Drift Current, as it approaches Cape Leeuwin, 

 of the West Australian Current. It is quoted by Schott (p. 23) 

 from the Melbourne Argus for March 28, 1872. 



Fuegian Drift. — If it were possible for Fuegian drift to be 

 carried round the earth and back to the western side of South America, 

 it would strike the coast about twenty degrees north of its original 

 starting-place. A bottle commencing its voyage round the globe 

 from Cape Horn would under these conditions be ultimately stranded 

 on the shores of the same continent somewhere between Valdivia 

 and Valparaiso. If practicable, this passage of about 15,000 miles at 

 an average speed of ten miles a day would occupy about four years. 

 However, Russell's numerous observations in Australian waters 

 demonstrate its impracticability. Fuegian drift after brushing 

 past the coasts of South-eastern Australia and Tasmania would, 

 if it escaped stranding on the north end of New Zealand, be carried 

 to the north-east for a short distance. It would then come within 

 the influence of currents setting to the westward and northward 

 that would sweep it back on the coasts of Queensland, of which an 

 actual instance has before been given as supplied by Mr. Page. 

 The westerly set of the currents between Fiji and the Kermadec 

 Islands would effectually block the passage of Fuegian drift across 

 the Pacific, and it would similarly prevent the passage eastward to 

 South America of any Australian drift. This point is well illustrated 

 in one of Schott's bottle-drift charts (Table 6). 



It is apparent from the tracks of bottles laid down in Schott's 

 charts that whilst Fuegia could distribute drift to South Africa, the 

 Crozets, St. Paul, and Amsterdam Islands, the southern coasts of 

 Australia, Tasmania, and the northern extreme of New Zealand, 

 it could do little more, since the rest of the materials would be swept 

 back to the Queensland coasts. On rare occasions by making an 

 unusually wide detour some Fuegian drift might be stranded on Nor- 

 folk Island and New Caledonia before it was turned back by the 

 Southern Equatorial Current ; but that would be the extent of its 

 invasion of the Pacific Ocean. 



The only drift that could reach Fuegia from the west would be 

 derived, as will subsequently be shown, from the southern end of 

 New Zealand, from the Antarctic islands lying south of it, from 

 Kerguelen and the islands to the south of it, from the distant South 

 Shetland and South Orkney Islands, and from the coasts of the 

 Antarctic continent adjacent to the two groups just named. None 

 of the drift from the vicinity of Cape Horn could ever return to the 

 South American continent ; and if any floating objects ever performed 

 the circuit of the globe in these high latitudes it would be south 



