Another belt of steadfast winds is that of the “Roaring Forties,” in the Southern Ocean; a wide stretch of all but landless sea, between 40° and 50° south latitude. These “Brave West Winds,” as they are called, being again the reverse of the easterly Trades, blow all the year round, and nearly all the world round, since only the southern extremity of South America interferes with them. They too give birth to a powerful current, flowing from west to east; and this mighty stream, almost encircling the Earth, has a mission to fulfil. Already it has been said that each lesser ocean in the world has its own separate circulation-system. This southern stream, with the Roaring Forties for its parent, has for its especial task to unite all those smaller systems into one. It has to refuse to the minor oceans a lonely and self-absorbed policy, and to insist on the great truth of a world-wide Ocean unity. It has to carry gifts from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from the Atlantic to the Indian, from the Indian to the Pacific again. It has to despatch streams northward into more distant regions, with messages of goodwill to all. Is this somewhat imaginative? Well, be it so. The facts are scientifically true. Suggested meanings, gathered therefrom, may be accepted or rejected, according to the reader’s pleasure. We see, at all events, that from the vast Drift-Currents of the Ocean, born of the Winds, spring the Grandchildren of the Winds, such powerful rivers as the Gulf Stream and the Black Stream; they in their turn giving birth to an infinite number of lesser currents, Great-grandchildren of the Winds;--one and all taking their share in a world-wide circulation of Ocean-waters. The southern belt of westerly winds, with its resulting westerly current, would be repeated in the northern hemisphere, but for the presence of great masses of land. Continents work havoc with schemes of ocean circulation. That westerly winds do greatly prevail in corresponding latitudes to the north is a well-known fact, though we cannot boast the possession of anything like the “Roaring Forties.” No broad belts of unchanging air-currents can exist in the neighbourhood of so much land, for the counter-influences are too many. From steadfast Wind-belts, giving birth to steadfast Ocean-streams, we pass naturally to those fitful storms which lash the ocean into passing passions, and to the uncertain breezes of temperate climes. There are currents and counter-currents, breezes and contrary breezes, winds from north and south and east and west, over the whole earth. Each separate movement of air helps to stir the waters of the sea into renewed restlessness.