Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/238

210 was named Stapleton, and the centre Buckland. At the south-west angle is a bay, with good anchorage, which was called Walker's Bay. The southern cluster visited by Mr. Coffin in 1825, in a whaler, was named Bally Islands.

Captain Beechey, having now spent so much time in low latitudes, was obliged again to steer to the inhospitable seas of the North; but as we have already embodied the results of this second journey, we shall not dwell upon the difficulties and dangers with which this navigation was attended. In the' month of October, 1327, he was on his return; and on the 29th anchored at Monterey. He remained at this harbour until the 17th of November, and then sailed for San Francisco. The Blossom afterwards put into San Blas and Mazatlem, taking the opportunity of examining the Tres Mafias and Isabella Islands, an account of which is inserted in the nautical remarks. On the 29th of March, 1828, after several delays, they crossed the equator in 99° 44′ W., and arrived at Valparaiso on the 29th of April. On the 23d of May they arrived at Coquimbo, from which port they finally put to sea on their way to Brazil, passed the meridian of Cape Horn on the $0th of June, and arrived at Rio Janeiro on the 21st of July. After a passage of forty-nine days they arrived at Spithead; and, on the 12th of October, the ship was paid off at Woolwich.

.—That part of Hydrography which would more particularly come under the observation of a nautical expedition, would be the natural history of the sea; and we may perhaps notice the observations made on the direction and intensity of currents as the most interesting of this class. In the passage from Teneriffe to Rio Janeiro, from June to July, it appears that the N.E. trades propelled the waters, in a S.W. by W. direction, at the average rate (and it is to be remarked, that all the rates given are averages) of eleven and a half miles per diem; and the S.E. trades to the W.N.W. with double the velocity, or twenty-two and a half miles per day; and that in the intermediate space, where light variable winds prevailed, a strong current was observed, running in a contrary direction to both these, at the rate of thirteen miles per day. Humboldt, Sir Erasmus Gower, and others, who have given the rate of the current in the Atlantic between the tropics, have limited its motion to eight and ten miles a day. It was Captain Beechey's intention to have given a table of currents in the Appendix, but this was omitted for want of space. In the South Pacific Ocean, about the parallel of 27°, the currents averaged nine miles a day; and nearer the equator, i.e. from 18° S. to 4° N., including the meridian of Otaheite 16°, five miles per day. Nearer the coast of South America, between the parallels of 8° N. and 19° S., about the meridian of 103° W., it was further increased to twenty-eight miles a day.