CURRENT-CONNECTIONS IN S. HEMISPHERE 297 



of the 60th parallel. The bearing of these considerations on the 

 distribution of littoral plants in the Southern Ocean will be sub- 

 sequently discussed. 



The Current-Connections of Australia. — I will now deal 

 separately with the current- connections of the great land-masses 

 of the southern hemisphere as far as they throw light on the distri- 

 bution of littoral plants in those regions; and in the first place I 

 will take Australia. The island continent is peculiarly situated 

 in these respects. Whilst from its tropical north-west shores it 

 would distribute drift across the Indian Ocean to the East African 

 coasts, on its south-west border and along the whole length of its 

 southern coasts it would receive drift, occasionally from South Africa, 

 but more usually from Fuegia and the intervening islands of the 

 Southern Ocean. From its south-eastern coasts it would supply 

 materials to the northern end of New Zealand ; whilst on its middle- 

 east and north-east coasts would be stranded drift from the islands 

 of the tropical South Pacific and from Equatorial South America. 

 The only materials it could receive from New Zealand would be 

 derived from the vicinity of the North Cape. Such drift, as is shown 

 below, would be thrown up on the coasts of Queensland, where it 

 might even be associated, as previously implied, with drift brought 

 from Fuegia by the West Wind Current. 



Dealing first with the eastern coasts of Australia, the data in 

 Schott's memoir indicate that we are more especially concerned with 

 the shores of Queensland along its length and with the transporting 

 agency of the South Equatorial Current. Bottles have been re- 

 covered on the Queensland coasts not only from the region between 

 and including Fiji, Tonga, and Norfolk Island, but from off the 

 distant coast of Ecuador on the other side of the Pacific; and it 

 may be safely assumed that the eastern archipelagos of the South 

 Pacific, the Marquesan, Paumotuan, and Tahitian groups, which 

 lie athwart the track of the trans-Pacific traverse, would also supply 

 drift to the Queensland coasts. 



The principal data, on which the remarks just made are based, 

 may here be given. A bottle cast overboard about 250 miles from 

 the coast of Ecuador in lat. 3° 52' S. and long. 85° 38' W. was recovered 

 966 days afterwards near Cooktown in North Queensland, the 

 traverse of J7620 miles, as estimated by Schott, having been accom- 

 plished at a minimum rate of 7-9 miles a day (Schott, pp. 24, 27, 

 Chart 6, No. 33). The same traverse was in part accomplished in 

 mid-ocean by three bottles mentioned by Schott (p. 24, Chart 6, 

 Nos. 6, 7, 40), which were found in the Paumotus after covering 

 distances of from 1600 to 2100 miles, having been dropped overboard 

 in the Eastern Pacific between the parallels of 10° and 12° S. These 

 bottles, being outside the swiftest part of the current, gave a drifting 

 rate of only five miles a day. An interesting traverse in mid-ocean, 

 but more to the north and near the axis of greatest velocity of the 

 South Equatorial Current, is mentioned by Page. Here a bottle, 

 dropped overboard on January 23, 1897, in lat. 4°N. and 168° W. 

 was found on the Gilbert Islands forty-two days afterwards, having 

 drifted 1100 miles at the rate of twenty-six miles a day, the fastest 



