12 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



to swell up at the neck. A little of it suffices handsomely for both 

 Aleuts and j)innipedia, to whom the ordinary atmosphere is much 

 more aj^reeahle. 



It is astonishing how rapidly snow melts here. This is due, prob- 

 ably, to the saline character of the air, for when the temperature is 

 only a single degree above freezing, and after several successive days 

 in April or May, at 34° and 36°, grass begins to grow, even if it be 

 below melting drifts, and the frost has penetrated the ground many 

 feet beneath. I have said that this humidity and fog, so strongly and 

 peculiarly characteristic of tlie Pribilof group, was due to the warmer 

 ocean currents setting up from the coast of Japan, and trending to 

 the Arctic through Bering's Straits, and deflected to the southward 

 into the North Pacific, laving, as it flows, the numerous passes and 

 channels of the great Aleutian chain ; but I do not think, nor do I 

 wish to be understood as saying, that my observation in this respect 

 warrants any conclusion as to so large a gulf stream flowing to the 

 north, such as mariners and hj^drographers recognize upon the Atlan- 

 tic coast. I do not believe that there is anything of the kind equal 

 to it in Bering Sea. I think, however, that there is a steady set-up 

 to northward from southward around the seal islands, which is con- 

 tinued through Bering's Straits, and drifts steadily oft" uj) to the liorth- 

 east, until it is lost bej^ond Point Barrow. That this pelagic circula- 

 tion exists is clearly proven by the logs of the whalers, who, from 

 1845 to 1856, literally filled the air over those waters with the smoke 

 of their "try fires," and plowed every square rod of that superficial 

 marine area with their adventurous keels. While no two, perhaps, 

 of those old whaling captains living to-day will agree as to the exact 

 course of tides, ^ for Alaskan tides do not .seem to obey any law, they 

 all affirm the existence of a steady current, passing up from the south 

 to the northeast, through Bering's Straits. The flow is not rapid, and 

 is doubtless checked at times, for short intervals, by other causes, 

 which need not be discussed here. It is certain, however, that there 

 is warm water enough, abnormal to the latitude, for the evolution of 

 the characteristic fog banks, which almost discomfited Pribilof, at 

 the time of liis discovery of the islands, nearly one hundred years ago, 

 and which have remained ever since. 



Without tliis fog the fur seal would never have rested there as he 

 has done; but when he came on his voyage of discovery, ages ago, 

 up from the rocky coasts of Patagonia, mayhap, had he not found 

 this cool, moist temperature of St. Paul and St. George, he would have 

 kept on, completed the circuit, and returned to those congenial antip- 

 odes of his birth. 



Clouds. — Speaking of the stormy weather brings to my mind the 

 beautiful, varied, and imjiressive nephelogical display in the heavens 

 overhead here during October and November. I may say, without 

 exaggeration, that the cloud effects which I have witnessed from the 

 bluffs of this little island in those seasons of the year surpass anything 

 that I had ever seen before. Perhaps the mighty masses of cumuli, 

 deriving their origin from warm exhalations out of the sea and swelled 

 and whirled with such rapidity, in spite of their appearance of solidity, 



' The rise and fall of tide at the seal islands I carefully watched one whole sea- 

 son at St. Paul. The irregularity, however, of ebb and flow is the most prominent 

 feature of the matter. The highest rise in the spring tides was a trifle over 4 feet, 

 while that of the neap tides not much over two. Owing to the nature of the case, 

 it is impossible to prepare a tidal calendar for Alaska, above the Aleutian Islands, 

 which will even faintly foreshadow a correct registration m advance. 



