NOVEL THEORY OF OCEAN CURRENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8264, 24 May 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOVEL THEORY OF OCEAN CURRENTS.

A very ingenious theory of ocean currents has been recently advanced by Mr. R. G. M. Browne in the London Nautical Maga zinc. lie socks to account for these great " rivers in the sea" by the varying tideproducing effects of the sun's and moon's attraction and the local variation of terrestrial gravity through the earth's diurnal rotation, combined with the advance in its orbit. Owing to its annual journey round the sun, a solar tidal wave travels round the earth once a year in such a way that its vertex is always at that part of the globe over which the sun is most vertical. A lunar tide wave, due to the moon's monthly revolution, also travels round the globe once a month, but in a circle, crossing the path of the former wave at an angle of about five degrees. Mr. Browne, therefore, argues that the water " heaped up" in these waves must flow obliquely but continuously in the direction in which the power of terrestrial gravity increases, ami hence must eventually " take the form of a current." The theory is apparently insufficient to explain some phenomena of ocean currents. If it fails to account fully for the genesis of the warm Gulf streams and Kuro Siwos and their counterbalancing polar currents, it throws new light upon some of their hitherto unexplained variations of velocity and direction and other apparent vagaries. It proves, at least, that these mighty currents are greatly affected, if not originated, by the gravitating force of the sun, moon, and earth exerted on the ocean's surface waters. For this reason the theory bears very decidedly upon practical navigation, showing seamen what changes in velocity and direction marine currents undergo at different periods in the progress of the great annual solar and monthly lunar tidal waves travelling around the globe.—New York Herald.