Winds and currents.] TERRA AUSTRALIS. 2 
may have previously experienced ; and he will consider what is here 
said upon both winds and currents, as calculated and intended to give 
him a general notion, and no more, of what may usually be expected 
upon the South Coast. 
Several days before making Cape Leeuwin, I experienced a (Atlas, 
current setting to the northward, at the rate of twenty-seven miles Plate ** 
per day; but at the mean distance of forty leagues, west-south- west 
from the cape, the current ran north-east, twenty-two miles ; and 
when the ship got in with the South Coast, I found it setting N, 70 0 E., 
at the average rate of twenty-seven miles per day : this was in the 
month of December. On approaching Cape Leeuwin in May, from 
the north-westward, the current for five days was ten miles to the 
east ; but at forty leagues from the cape, it ran N. 35 0 E. fifteen 
miles ; and from the meridian of the cape to past King George's 
Sound, the current set east, twenty-seven miles per day, nearly as it 
had before done in December. Captain Vancouver and admiral D'En- 
trecasteaux do not speak very explicitly as to the currents ; but it 
may be gathered from both, that they also experienced a set to the 
eastward along this part of the South Coast. 
The winds seem to blow pretty generally from the westward 
at Cape Leeuwin. In the summer time, they vary from north- 
west in the night, to south-west in the latter part of the day, though 
not regularly ; and in the winter season this variation does not seem 
to take place. A long swell of the sea, called ground swell to 
distinguish it from the lesser, variable one of the surface, appears to 
come at all times from the south-westward, which indicates that the 
strongest and most durable winds blow from that quarter ; and this 
was partly confirmed by our experience, for whenever it blew hard, 
the wind was at, or near to south-west. 
It is from the superior strength and apparent prevalence of - 
this wind, that the currents in the neighbourhood of Cape Leeuwin 
may be explained. The sea being driven in from the south-west, 
and meeting with the cape, will necessarily be divided by it, and 
