Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 1.djvu/469

Winds and currents.] On reaching Cape Northumberland I again found the eastwardly current; and from thence into Bass' Strait it ran N. 80° 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. 39° E. fourteen miles a day; appearing to be much influenced in its northern direction by the winds blowing strong from the southward. Mr. Dalrymple, in reasoning from the analogy 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' 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, between Cape Otway and Wilson's Promontory, seems to be an exception, 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° E., thirty-five