n of the currents here described, are deduced from
the daily positions of the ship by astronomical observation, compared
with those given by a log kept in the common way, but with somewhat more
than common attention. In the observations, however, there may be some
errors, and a log cannot be depended upon nearer than to five miles in
the distance, and half a point in the course for the twenty-four hours;
and consequently this account of the currents must be taken as subject to
the sum, or to the difference of the errors in the observations and log;
though it is probable they may have been diminished by taking the medium
of several days, which has always been done where it was possible.

Besides the difficulty there is in obtaining the exact rate and direction
of a current, it is known that a continuance of the wind in any
particular quarter may so far change its rate of moving, and even its
direction, that at another time it may be found materially different in
both. Of the probability of these changes the commander of a ship must
form his own judgment, from the winds he may have previously experienced;
and he will consider what is here said upon both winds and currents, as
calculated and intended to give him a general notion, and no more, of
what may usually be expected upon the South Coast.

(Atlas Plate I.)

Several days before making Cape Leeuwin, I experienced a current setting
to the northward, at the rate of twenty-seven miles per day; but at the
mean distance of forty leagues, west-south-west from the cape, the
current ran north-east, twenty-two miles; and when the ship got in with
the South Coast, I found it setting N. 70 deg. E., at the average rate of
twenty-seven miles per day: this was in the month of December. On
approaching Cape Leeuwin in May, from the north-westward, the current for
five days was ten miles to the east; but at forty leagues from the cape,
it ran N. 35 deg. E. fifteen miles; and from the meridian of the cape to past
King George's Sound, the current set east, twenty-seven miles per day,
nearly as it had before done in December. Captain Vancouver and admiral
D'Entrecasteaux do not speak very explicitly as to the currents; but it
may be gathered from both, that they also experienced a set to the
eastward along this part of the South Coast.

The winds seem to blow pretty generally from the westward at Cape
Leeuwin. In the summer time, they vary from north-west in the night, to
south-west i