The northern branch of the Equatorial Current, or as It is more correctly called the Northern Equatorial Current, has its northern limit about 24• N. lat. At its eastern extremity it is comparatively weak, but, like the Southern Equatorial Current, strengthens as it proceeds west; its greatest velocity appears to be ou its southern border. At its western extremity the Philippine Islands form an im penetrable obstacle, and it turns with considerable etreugth to the north. In this direction it sweeps along the Japan Islands at the rate of from two to four miles an hour, receiving the name of the Japanese Current. It thence proceeds past the Kurile Islands, where a portion of It seems to make Its way into the sea of Okhotsk, and a somewhat larger portion passes Into the Sea of Kamtchatius, and with consider, able velocity through Behring's Strait; but the main body proceeds eastward to the north-west coast of North America, by which it is turned southward, and passes along the coasts of 1Vashiugton, Oregon, and California, to about 30' N. lat., where it turns westward and rejoins the North Equatorial Current The fact of the North Equa torial being a revolving and re-entering current was first established by Mr. Findlay lu 1852, though Indications of it had been long before made by scientific geographers and navigators of Europe and America. The still central apace around which this Northern Equatorial current flows forms the great North Pacifies whaling ground, corrals pending to the smaller whaling ground between Australia and Now Zealand, around which the Australian current revolves. A narrow current, called the Mexican Coast Current, runs aouthward along the coasts of Mexico and Central America from California, while as it approaches Panami a counter-current runs northward closer in-shore; these appear to be currents connecting the Japanese and Peruvian currents, but there is a good deal of confusion and obscurity in relation to the currents about the Bay of Penton& We must not overlook a current which is set down in the maps of Berghaus, &c., outside the Peruvian Current, about 25° N. lat., 80° W. long. It is called Mentor's Counter Drift Current, from the Prussian vessel by whose commander it was observed • but its existence does not appear to have been corroborated by navigators, and It may have been only a temporary drift caused by transient circumstances.
Another great current whose existence has only recently been established, is the Equatorial Countei Current, a great belt of water moving with considerable velocity in an easterly direction across the entire breadth of the Pacific, and occuping the region of the equa torial calms between 5' and 9° or IV N. lat. This current traverses
from cast to west the middle of the broad space appropriated to the Great Equatorial Current, and, as already mentioned, divides it into a northern and a southern current, between which it flows in a direction opposite to both. Its velocity is greatest at its eastern end, towards which it has been found to be from two to three miles an hour.
Of the progress of the tidal-wave of the Pacific, our knowledge is but impel feet, According to Dr. Whewell its general direction ie from east to west, but its heights are email. He traces it along the western coast cf America from Acapulco southward along South America to Cape Horn; and again northward from Acapulco along the coast of North America, and thence westward by the Aleutian Archipelago to Kanitchatka.
The warmth equator, or Hoe of greatest heat of the water of the Pacific, I. by no means coincident with the terrestrial equator, being north Of it east of 150' W. long., and south of it west of that meridian. On this line the minimum heat, 81' 7', occurs between the Galapagos and Sandwich Islands ; and the maximum, 88° 5' at New Guinea. The current which sets northward through Behring's Strait prevents the ice of the Arctic Polar Sea from passing southward into tho Kamtehatka Sea. On the opposite aide the floating masses of ice of the Antarctic Polar Sea are frequently met with towards the American omit between 50' and GO' N. lat., 140° and 200' W. long., and even north of 50' N. lat. Farther woad, in the sea south of Australia, it Is supposed that ice never passe* beyond GV S. let (Voyages of Cook, Flinders, Basil Hall, Kotzebue, Krusenstern, Beechcy, Fitzroy and Darwin, Wilkes Belcher, Teasan, Du Petit Theuars, lairtigue, &c.; Humboldt, Eisen Politique fur la Nouvdle Espagne ; 5Ieyen, Reim am die Welt ; Krusenstern, Atlas de l'Ocean Paevtluc ; Duperrey, Carte du ilourement des Eau.c d la surface de la .1/er duns le grand Ocean ; Jeffery and Chart of Tcrra Australis ; Physical Atlases if Bergliaus, and Pctermauu ; Findley, in Journal of Geographical Society, vol. xxiii. • Maury, Investi gations Of the Winds and Currents of the Sea ; and lanations and Sailing _Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts issued by the United States' Hydrographic Department, 1S54; Admiralty Manila/ ; and Sailing Directions for South America, &c.)