[NORTH COAST. WINDS AND CURRENTS.]

The North Coast appears to have the same winds, with a little exception, as the tropical part of the East Coast.  From March or April to November, the south-east trade prevails; often veering, however, to east, and even north-east, and producing fine weather, with sea and land breezes near the shore.  At the head of the Gulph of Carpentaria, the north-west monsoon began to blow at the end of November; but further westward, at the northern Van Diemen’s Land, I apprehend it will set in at the beginning of that month, and continue till near the end of March.  This is the season of heavy rains, thunder, and lightning, and should seem, from our experience, to be the sickly time of the year.

It is thought to be a general rule, that a monsoon blowing directly in from the sea, produces rain, and from off the land, fine weather, with sea and land breezes; this I found exemplified on the west side of the Gulph of Carpentaria, where the rainy north-west monsoon, which then came off the land, brought fine weather:  the rain came with eastern winds, which set in occasionally and blew strong for two or three days together.  It seems even possible, that what may be the dry season on the North Coast in general, may be the most rainy on the west side of the Gulph; but of this I have doubts.

According to Dampier, the winds and seasons on the north-west coast of Terra Australis are nearly the same as above mentioned upon the North Coast; but he found the sea and land breezes, during the south-east monsoon, to blow with much greater strength.

In speaking of the currents, I return to the tropical part of the East Coast.  Within the Barrier Reefs, it is not the current, for there is almost none, but the tides which demand attention; and these, so far as they came under my observation, have been already described, and are marked on the charts.  At a distance from the barrier there is a current of some strength, at least during the prevalence of south-east winds; but instead of setting southward, as I have described it to do from Sandy Cape to Cape Howe, the current follows the direction of the trade wind, and sets to the north-west, with some variation on either side, at the rate of half a mile, and from thence to one mile an hour.  This I found to continue amongst the reefs of Torres’ Strait, nearly as far as Murray’s Islands; but from thence onward through the strait, its direction in October was nearly west, something more than half a mile; and so continued across the Gulph of Carpentaria to Cape Arnhem, with a little inclination toward the south.

Along the north coast of Terra Australis, the current seems to run as the wind blows.  In March, before the south-east monsoon was regularly set in, I found no determinate current until the end of the month, when Timor was in sight, and it then set westward, three quarters of a mile an hour; but in the November following, I carried it all the way from Cape Arnhem, as captain Bligh had done from Torres’ Strait in September 1792; the rate being from half a mile to one mile and a quarter in the hour.