1827. 



PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 315 



The course of this current, after it passes Cape Lis^ chap. 

 burn, is somewhat doubtful ; we should expect it to ,_ 

 diverge, and one part to sweep round Icy Cape and Oct. 

 Point Barrow; but the shoals off the former place, like 

 the currents themselves, do not furnish any satisfactory 

 inference. These shoals lie parallel with the shore, 

 and may be occasioned by ice grounded off the point. 

 It may be observed here, that voyagers have frequently 

 mentioned westerly currents along the northern coast 

 of Asia and Nova Zembla, and we know from experi- 

 ence, that, in the summer, at least, there is a strong 

 westerly current between Spitzbergen and Greenland. 

 In the opposite direction, we find only a weak stream 

 passing through the narrow strait of Hecla and Fury, 

 and none through Barrow Strait. It seems, therefore, 

 probable, that the principal part of the water which 

 flows into the Polar Sea, from the Pacific, finds its 

 way to the westward. 



By many experiments made on shore at Icy Cape 

 by Lieutenant Belcher, it appeared that southerly and 

 westerly winds occasioned high tides, and northerly 

 and easterly winds very low ebbs. It would seem, 

 from this fact, that the water finds some obstruction 

 to the northward, and I think it probable that the be- 

 nearly 200 miles distant. If the reader will have the candour to 

 compare the observations made at the surface at both places, he will 

 find them to agree, with the exception that the current at one place 

 ran faster than that at the other, the reason of which I have en- 

 deavoured to account for in page 313 of this volume. I should 

 observe here, that, although I have not encumbered my narrative 

 with a notice of every time the current was tried, such observa- 

 tions were made repeatedly, whenever the nature of the service I 

 was employed upon would admit of it; but I wish it to be borne in 

 mind, that the situation of the ship, necessarily close in shore, was 

 higlily unfavourable to the determination of the question under 

 di scussiou. 



