248 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Classification of the winds. — Tlie winds here may be classified 

 under two heads: Summer winds: Blowing- fresh during June, July, 

 and August, principally from the w^est-northwest, varied with light 

 airs from the northeast, and a gale or two from the southwest, lasting 

 a day or so. Winter winds: Stirring fresh, to gales, throughout Sep- 

 tember to June, principally from the northwest to north-northeast; the 

 "boorgas,"or snow and sleet storms, coming invariably from that direc- 

 tion. One or two heavy southeasters occur every fall, as a rule, in 

 October generally; the brief lulls between blasts during this season are 

 occupied by light southerly airs. 



The summer winds are always charged with fog, while the winter 

 gales usually blow out clear, unless accompanied with sleety spiculai or 

 snow. In Siberia, Wrangell says that the southwest breezes are the 

 coldest: the north-northwest ones are such here. The southerly airs are 

 mild; but I never felt any especial warmth when exposed to them. 



Characteristics of' Bering Sea ice. — The descriptions which 

 Wrangell, Demetri Laptev, and Hendenstrom have given of the 

 behavior of the ice packs, between the Kolyma mouth and Cape Che- 

 lagskoi, were duplicated in all their details by the floes which envi- 

 roned St. Paul during the winter of my residence there. On the 27th 

 of May, 1873, the ice fields around the island seemed as solid and 

 unbroken to every point of the compass as they had lor the five months 

 preceding, and night settled over them in this shape; early in the 

 morning of the following day I arose, and judge of my pleasant aston- 

 ishment in viewing the open waters of Bering Sen on every hand; the 

 only suggestions left of its icy fetters were the numerous scattered 

 cakes of thickest floes, which bobbed about at wide intervals; there 

 was little or no strong wind attending this sudden dissolution. The 

 decomposition of tlie ice had taken place so secretly that its final rele- 

 gation to its original form was fairly accomplished almost instantly and 

 sinuiltaneousl.y, and without warning to human eyes; the alternate lay- 

 ering of salt, in ocean water ice, accounts for this peculiar vanishing 

 of sea floes. 



The failure of the barometer in Bering Sea. — Preeminent 

 among the many difficulties in the path of the mariner who may be 

 cruising in the Bering Sea is the fact that his barometer, which gives 

 such timely nnd intelligent signals of warning, or of confidence, every- 

 where on the high seas of the earth is, up here, by some reason or 

 other, wholly impotent; and does nothing to aid and everything to con- 

 fuse and distress the sailor. Capt. M, C. Erskine assured me of this; 

 and his declaration is proof positive to my mind; he is undoubtedly, by 

 the long experience of more than fourteen consecutive seasons' sailing 

 in and out of Bering Sea, 1867-1880 (this year's trip will make his 

 fifteenth summer in those waters), the most thoroughly posted man liv- 

 ing in regard to the currents, tides, winds, and waves of the northwest 

 coast between San Francisco and Bering Strait. 



With the exception of what Parry says in his narrative of his third 

 voyage (1824), I do not find any specific mention made of this behavior 

 of the barometer in the north ; all of the Arctic seamen, unquestionably, 

 fully understand its utter worthlessness to them. Parry declares (Har- 

 per's Family Library, p. 0(3, Vol. ii) "the indications of the barometer 

 previous to and during this gale deserve to be noticed, because it is 

 only about Cape Farewell that, in coming from the northward down 

 Davis Strait, this instrument begins to speak a language which has 

 ever been intelligible to us as a weather glass." 



During the course of my cruise in Bering Sea, July-September, 1871, 



