60 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



westerly drifting when the wind is from an easterly direction, but also little 

 or no movement of the ice when the wind is westerly. These circumstances, 

 as far as they go, tend to show that Beaufort Sea is nearly landlocked in 

 all directions excepting toward the west. 



3. A description of the tide in Elson's Bay just east of Point Barrow, 

 found upon p. 162, Vol. 42 (1854), of Accounts and Papers, Navy, reads 

 as follows: 



" The tides have been registered hourly for nine months, and the result 

 is that the flood makes from the west, and the mean rise and fall in Elson's 

 Bay is seven inches. The time of high water at full and change is 1 p. M., 

 but great irregularities occur from the wind, the rise being scarcely percep- 

 tible with fresh east and northeast breezes, when with southwest gales it 

 amounts to 3^ feet. Of the latter case, a remarkable instance occurred on 

 the 18th of December, when the water rose from the usual depth of 14^ feet 

 to 17 feet 10 inches, with a gale at southwest (true), the force of which 

 was registered for fourteen hours at 8 feet, 9 inches and 10 feet." 



Observations made at Ooglaamie just west of Point Barrow from Feb- 

 ruary 26 to June 17, 1883, show that a west-southwest wind may, in extreme 

 cases, cause the daily sea level to stand nearly three feet higher than when 

 the wind is from the east-northeast. Observations taken on the south side 

 of Flaxman Island in 1906, show that during the period extending from 

 October 21 to December 17 the fluctuation in the daily sea level amounted 

 to two feet, the lowest stage occurring at the time of northeasterly winds 

 and the highest stage on westerly or southwesterly winds. Messrs. Leffing- 

 well and Stefansson have informed me that effects similar to these are 

 common all along the northern coast of Alaska. 



The natural inference from this is that the unknown coast line in question 

 is not very remote from the northern coast line of Alaska and that the un- 

 known land approaches the known Arctic Archipelago in one or more points, 

 thus making a fairly complete land boundary to the north of Beaufort Sea. 

 4. There are large quantities of driftwood to the westward of the 

 mouth of the Mackenzie River and a considerable amount for some dis- 

 tance to the eastward, although very little as far east as Coronation Gulf. 

 This indicates a general westward movement of the ice in Beaufort Sea with 

 occasional eastward movements when strong westerly winds prevail. Very 

 little driftwood has been found on the islands to the northeastward of Banks 

 Island or along the northern coasts of Grant Land and Greenland. This 

 indicates that no drift ice of consequence goes from Beaufort Sea to the open 

 ocean via the passage lying north of Prince Patrick Island, Axel Heiberg 

 Island, Grant Land, and Greenland, and so the probability of a narrowing 

 of the passage at one or more points. Were it not for prevailing easterly 

 winds, the waters of the Mackenzie River should, because of the deflecting 

 force of the earth's rotation, bear off to the eastward, instead of taking*a 

 more or less westerly direction. 



