Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 1.djvu/471

Winds and currents.] mercury, and diminish in strength, or die away; but the gale is not over, although a cessation of a day or two may take place. In some cases, the wind flies round suddenly from north-west to south-west; and the rainy, thick weather then continues a longer time.

Such is the usual course of the gales along the South Coast and in Bass' Strait; but on the east side of the strait the winds partake of the nature of those on the East Coast, where the gale often blows hardest between south and south-east, and is accompanied with thick weather, and frequently with heavy rain.

In the four or five summer months, the south-east and east winds appear to be most prevalent all round the Great Bight; but even there, the western winds sometimes blow at that time, and usually with considerable strength. Thus I had a strong south-west wind in the middle of February, near the Investigator's Group, and a gale from the same quarter in March, at the entrance of Spencer's Gulph; which last was felt still more severely in Bass' Strait by captain Baudin. At the two extremities of the coast, that is, in the strait and near King George's Sound, the winds blow sometimes from the west and sometimes from the eastward, in the summer; but the strongest winds are from the south-west.

It will hence appear, that the summer is alone the proper time for a ship to come upon, and still more so for exploring the south coast of Terra Australis; whether she proceed along it from west to east, as I did in the Investigator, or from east to west, as captain Baudin, seems to be almost a matter of indifference. From Cape Leeuwin to the end of the Archipelago of the Recherche, and from Cape Northumberland to Bass' Strait, it is perhaps most advantageous to proceed eastward, on account of the current; but in the intermediate and more considerable part of the coast, a western route is certainly preferable. It has also this general advantage, that the winds which are fair for running along the coast are those that blow moderately, and are accompanied with fine weather, most