Winds and currents.. ] TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
On reaching Cape Northumberland I again found the east- 
wardly current ; and from thence into Bass' Strait it ran N. 8o° E., at 
the rate of twelve miles a day, the wind blowing strong from the 
south-westward in the latter part of the time. 
In a subsequent run across the Great Bight in May, from the 
Archipelago nearly direct for Bass' Strait, the current set upon the 
average, N. gg° E. fourteen miles a day; appearing to be much in- 
fluenced in its northern direction by the winds blowing strong 
from the southward. Mr. Dalrymple, in reasoning from the ana- 
logy of southern Africa, expected that the winds upon this coast 
would be found to blow from the northward, or off the shore, in the 
winter time, and this might possibly be the case if close in with the 
land ; but at a distance from it, as just observed, the winds were from 
the southward. 
Such an accumulation of water forcing itself through Bass 5 
Strait, would naturally lead to the expectation of finding a strong 
current there, setting to the east ; but on the contrary, the set in 
common cases was found to be rather in the opposite direction, the 
current appearing to be predominated by the tides, whose superior 
strength forced it below the surface. The flood comes from the 
eastward ; and after making high water at Furneaux's Isles, passes 
on to Hunter's and King's Islands, where it meets another flood 
from the southward ; and the high water then made seems to be 
nearly at the time that it is low water at Furneaux's Isles. Another 
flood is then coming from the east, and so on ; whence a ship going 
eastward through the Strait, will have more tide meeting than setting 
after her, and be commonly astern of her reckoning. This applies 
more especially to the middle of the strait, and is what I there found 
with winds blowing across it ; but the bight on the north side, be- 
tween Cape Otway and Wilson's Promontory, seems to be an excep- 
tion, and in fact, it lies out of the direct set of the tides. In running 
from Port Phillip to the Promontory I was set S. 73 0 E., thirty-five 
