CURRENT-CONNECTIONS IN S. HEMISPHERE 299 



New Zealand as a Receiver and Distributor of Drift. — 

 This subject has already been several times mentioned in this chapter. 

 Whilst its north-west shores would receive drift from Southern 

 Australia and Tasmania, they would also receive the tailings of 

 drift from Fuegia and the islands of the Southern Ocean (north 

 of Kerguelen) that had slipped past the Australian and Tasmanian 

 coasts. On its south-west shores would be stranded materials 

 from Kerguelen and the islands south of it, and perhaps also some 

 occasional drift from the islands (South Shetlands and South Orkneys) 

 and the adjacent coasts of the Antarctic continent south of the 

 Horn. 



Russell, as quoted by Schott (p. 23), gives a number of examples 

 to show that bottles thrown over south of the 40th parallel between 

 Tasmania and New Zealand arrive in almost every case at the western 

 shores of New Zealand. Some longer drifts, as supplied by 

 Schott in his charts (5 and 6) and as mentioned in his text, are worth 

 remarking. Thus, a bottle (No. 17) thrown over to the S.S.W. of 

 Cape Leeuwin in about lat. 41° 30' was stranded close to the North 

 Cape. Another (mentioned by Russell) thrown into the sea more 

 to the south-west in about lat. 46° S. and long. 103° E. was recovered 

 on the south-east coast of New Zealand, after doubling the South 

 Cape. A third (No. 21) from a position about 200 miles north-east 

 of Kerguelen and near the 46th parallel was beached at the entrance 

 to Cook Straits. 



That the southern extremity of New Zealand may receive drift 

 from higher latitudes is indicated by the record of a cask which is 

 noted by Schott on p. 23. Derived from the whaler Ely, which 

 was lost on the Macdonald Islands to the south of Kerguelen in 

 about lat. 53° S., it was ultimately found on the Chatham Islands, 

 a period of 510 days having passed since the loss of the ship. As 

 a distributor of drift to the Pacific coasts of extra-tropical South 

 America, New Zealand plays an important part, a matter that is 

 discussed below. The possibility of drift washed off its northern 

 extremity being carried to Queensland has already been noticed. 



South America and its Current-Connections. — The circum- 

 stance that South America reaches south to the 56th parallel, whilst 

 New Zealand extends to about the 47th and Africa only to the 35th, 

 has been a determining feature in plant distribution in this part 

 of the globe. To this factor in the dispersal of plants by currents 

 must be added another determining influence due to the northern 

 slant of the easterly drift in the higher southern latitudes. For 

 this reason Australian drift could never be carried to corresponding 

 latitudes on the Pacific side of South America ; and, as we have seen, 

 its traverse of the Pacific Ocean would under any circumstances 

 be impossible on account of the working of the currents to the north 

 of New Zealand as interpreted by the bottle-drift data. 



On the other hand, materials from the southern end of New Zealand 

 and from the Antarctic islands to the south of it would be stranded 

 on the shores of South Chile between Valdivia and the island of 

 Chiloe, 40°-43°S. The course that such drift would take is ex- 

 emplified by the track of a bottle, which, after being cast overboard 



