CURRENT-CONNECTIONS IN S. HEMISPHERE 303 



to the Chagos Islands. It was from this atoll that Wood-Jones 

 made numerous experiments with bottles, the results of which are 

 specially important in this connection. Although only two were 

 recovered, both were found on " exactly the same spot " at a place 

 called Ras Day at Brava (1° 6' N; 44° 2' E.) in Italian Somaliland. 

 Both of them, strange to relate, were dispatched on the same day, 

 November 15, 1905, and in both cases the record was returned by 

 the same person, Captain Piazza, Resident of Brava. The first 

 was found on May 27, 1906, an interval of 193 days, which gives a 

 daily drift of not less than seventeen miles over a distance of about 

 3300 miles. The second was not recovered until July 11, 1907, 

 the cause of the great delay being not explained. Wood-Jones 

 (p. 295) considers that drift would require from forty to sixty days to 

 reach Keeling Atoll from the Malayan Islands to the eastward. 

 By piecing the data together we may assume that the whole traverse 

 from south of Sumbawa to Equatorial Africa would be accomplished 

 in not more than eight months, the distance being about 4500 miles. 



As an agent in carrying drift from tropical Africa to Malaya the 

 Indian Counter Current, which courses eastward along equatorial 

 latitudes, seems to be ineffective. It is scarcely illustrated in Schott's 

 maps, and, as in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, we may be permitted 

 to doubt whether any purely compensating current could, except 

 on very rare occasions, transport drift across an ocean. In the case 

 of this particular counter- current floating materials would be driven 

 out of its influence, southward during the north-east monsoon and 

 northward in the south-west monsoon. 



Summing up the effective current-connections between Africa and 

 Malaya, as far as they are reflected in bottle-drift, we may infer that 

 Malaya is the giver and Africa the recipient. But it would seem that 

 whether it came from Sumatra or from the islands east of Java, 

 Malayan drift reaching East Africa would be mostly gathered under 

 the equator. This was the opinion also formed by Wood-Jones 

 when he reflected on the two facts (a) that crocodiles and large 

 snakes have been stranded alive amongst the Malayan vegetable 

 drift that is regularly floated to Keeling Atoll, and (b) that bottles 

 thrown into the sea by him from this atoll had been stranded at 

 Brava on the coast of Equatorial Africa. " I would dearly love " 

 (he writes on p. 294) " to examine the coast-line of Italian Somaliland 

 in the region of Ras Day (Brava) to see if there was not some waif 

 that had succeeded in making a new home there, and that could 

 clearly tell of a Malayan or an Australian origin. I do not doubt 

 that some such colonist would certainly be found — some typical 

 Asiatic or Australian intruder on the African fauna and flora." 



In the westerly traverse of the Indian Ocean in equatorial latitudes 

 by Malayan drift much would depend on the season of the year. 

 The bottles dispatched from Keeling Atoll by Wood-Jones in Novem- 

 ber were impelled westward during the period of the north-east 

 monsoon which probably came to their assistance when the South- 

 east Trade failed. Had they been sent off in May, they would, 

 when near the Line in mid-ocean, have been diverted north towards 

 India, and when the south-west monsoon gave place a few months 



