The problem of a gravity current along a coast is considered in the laboratory. The flow originates from a continuous pointsource and, when facing downstream, has the shore to its right. The shore is the vertical wall of a 13-m-diameter rotating basin. The density of the current, rl, is slightly less than that of the surrounding fluid. This buoyant flow is shown to depend upon three parameters; namely, the Burger and Ekman numbers and the aspect ratio of the current at its source. Disregarding friction and taking the flow as hydrostatic so that the current aspect ratio does not need to be considered, the stability characteristics of the current are shown to depend mostly upon the Burger number. To study its role in the flow, we performed several experiments by varying the Burger number Bu between 0.15 and 0.82. For large Burger numbers the current is stable, but as it decreases, increasing numbers of anticyclonic disturbances develop and grow along the axis of the current. Measurements of the normalized distance from the source, and times for these disturbances to develop, are given as function of the Burger number. The dependence of the normalized separation distance of disturbances upon the Burger number, in cases of multiple instabilities, is also discussed. Finally, these laboratory results are compared with the Algerian Current, where both anticyclonic and cyclonic eddies have been observed. The experimental current simulates the Algerian Current when the Burger number is 0.15. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1991