HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
353 
CHAPTER XVI. 
Extract from the Registers of the Royal Academy of Marine, March 9, 1775,—. 
On the Archipelago to the North and North-east of Madagascar. — Observa¬ 
tions on the Chart of the Isles and the Dangers connected with them , to the 
North-east of Madagascar, between the fourth and eighth Degree of South La¬ 
titude, and the sixty-eighth and seventy-fifth of East Longitude . The two last 
Articles extracted from the Supplement of M. d’Apres. 
"M . D’Apres has divided his work into several Sections: the treatise on the 
Currents accompanies that of the Winds. After having acknowledged that the direc¬ 
tion of the currents depends, in some measure, on the impulse of the winds, and 
consequently changes with the monsoon, M. d’Apr'es remarks that their force is 
more perceivable in the vicinity of land, and that their direction is almost always 
subordinate to the position of the coasts, capes, and islands which they encounter. 
Hence he is led to describe what is most deserving of notice on this subject ; and 
speaks of the monsoons and currents on the coast of Africa, Arabia, Persia, Hin- 
dostan, the Laquedive Isles, the Gulf of Manar, and the Island of Ceylon. He 
remarks, that the currents set into the Red Sea whenever they run out of the Gulf 
of Persia; and that, on the contrary, they set into the Gulf of Persia whenever they 
run out of the Red Sea. 
“ M. d’Apres enters into a still more particular detail of what relates to the coast 
of Coromandel, and other places in the Gulf of Bengal; and has written some 
remarks on the navigation of this gulf, which are well worthy of attention: from 
thence he passes to the Gulf of Siam, the seas and coasts of China, and the Bor¬ 
nean, Phillipine, and Molucca Islands; when he points.out the currents, monsoons, 
and some phaenomena connected with them. 
“ This treatise on the winds which prevail in the Eastern Seas, is terminated by 
the signs of sea and land breezes, that are generally found near the coasts of which 
he has spoken, when the monsoon is towards its conclusion; and continue till the 
opposite monsoon succeeds, and has acquired sufficient strength to overcome them* 
and maintain its regular point. 
