Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

WINDS STORMS. 243 could not have been made many years. At sea, when noilli- eastward of the Falklands, great quantities of drift kelp* are seen, besides water-worn trunks and branches of trees, near which there ai-e generally fish, and numbers of birds. These sure indications of a current from the south-west have been met with upwards of two hundred miles to the northward of Berke- ley Sound. There is not, however, reason to think that this current ever runs more than two knots an hour, under any cir- cumstances, and in all probability its usual set is even less than one knot. Wind is the principal evil at the Falklands : a region moi-e exposed to storms, both in summer and winter, it would be difficult to mention. The winds are variable ; seldom at rest, while the sun is above the horizon, and very violent at times ; during the summer a calm day is an extraordinary event. Generally speaking, the nights are less windy than the days, but neither by night nor by day, nor at any season of the year, are these islands exempt from sudden and very severe squalls ; or from gales which blow heavily, though they do not usually last many hours. It has been stated by Bougainville and others that in sum- mer the wind generally freshens as the sun rises, and dies away about sunset: also, that the nights are clear and starlight. The information I have received, with what I have myself wit- nessed, induces me to agree to the first of these statements in its most general sense, and to a certain degree I can admit the second ; but, at the same time, it is true that there are many cloudy and very many windy nights in the course of each year, I might almost say month. Tlie Magellan was driven from her anchors, though close to a weather shore in the narrowest part of Berkeley Sound, and totally wrecked in Johnson Har- bour about midnight of the 12th of Januaryf 1833. The prevalent direction of the wind is westerly. Gales, in general, commence in the north-west, and draw or fly round to the south-west ; and it may be remarked, that when rain • Sea-weed detached from the rocks and drifting' with the current, t The month which, in that hemisphere, corresponds to July in ours. R 2