122 CEUISE OP STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCE^N. 



On the following day, when about 8 miles off the southeast end of Wrangel Island, the current 

 was measured with a chip and line, and found to be about three-quarters of a knot per hour in a 

 northeasterly direction (the direction of the coast-line). During the night the ice continued to 

 drift to the northward, the lead iu which the Corwin was at anchor changing its position about 8 

 miles. On the following morning (August 12), while at anchor near the shore off the east end of 

 Wrangel Island, the current was observed to be north 1£ knots per hour. The wind during the 

 11th and J 2th was moderate from west to southwest. 



August 13, the vessel's position was determined by observations, and the reckoning brought 

 forward showed a north-northeast current of 1 mile per hour for the twenty-four hours. 



At midnight, August 16, stopping at Point Belcher, the current was found to be setting along 

 the coast to the northward about 1 mile per hour. The same current was observed a few hours 

 later near Point Barrow. The wind during the day was light and variable. 



August 17, measured the velocity of the current while at anchor at Point Barrow, and found 

 it to be If miles per hour, following the direction of the land to the northeast. During our stay 

 at Point Barrow the wind was light and variable, so that it would have but little effect upon the 

 cur lent. 



August 18, got under way from Point Barrow, and steamed to the southward, with a strong- 

 head current, which was no doubt accelerated by a fresh southwest wind. At 7 a. m. the following 

 day at Point Belcher found the current setting to the northeast along the land, but very much 

 decreased iu velocity ; the wind light southerly. 



From noon August 19 to noou August 20, steaming to the southward between Icy Cape and 

 Point Hope, the vessel was set to the northward 30 miles. 



From 5 p. m. August 20 until meridian of the 21st the current was found to have set 12 miles 

 north by east one-half east. 



From i p. m. August 22 until meridian August 24, in Bering Strait and Sea between the 

 Diomede Islands and Plover Bay, the current set 75 miles to the northward, the wind blowing 

 a fresh gale from south and southeast. Three days later, in returning over this track with a 

 moderate northerly wind, no current was encountered. 



In September the result of our observations in Kotzebue Sound showed a tidal current with a 

 rise and fall of about 3 feet. 



The great currents of the Arctic regions, so far as known, may be briefly described as follows : 

 First. An easterly current through the cluster of islands lying to the northward of the 

 Americau continent. This current is best shown by the drift of the English exploring vessel, the 

 Resolute. After being abandoned by her people in Melville Sound she drifted with the currents 

 through Barrow Strait, Lancaster Sound, and Baffin Bay into Davis Strait, a distance of about 

 1,200 miles. 



Second. A southerly current between Grinnell Land and the west coast of Greenland. This 

 current has been often remarked by navigators, but is best shown by the Polaris while beset in 

 Smith's Sound, and the remarkable drift of a part of her crew on the ice-floe through Smith's 

 Sound and Kennedy's Channel to the coast of Labrador. 



Third. A southerly current between the east coast of Greenland and Spitzbergen. The strong 

 southerly set met by Parry iu those seas in his attempt to get north from Spitzbergen by means 

 of boat and sled will be remembered by all readers of the account of that heroic but futile under- 

 taking. 



Fourth. Still farther to the eastward, between Spitzbergen and coast of Norway, a branch of 

 the Atlantic equatorial current, so much modified, both in temperature and velocity, as to be 

 almost unrecognizable, passes to the northward and loses itself in the icy regions. 



Fifth. The current through Bering Strait and in that part of the Arctic Ocean lying to the 

 northward. The existence of this current has been questioued by the Hon. Clements Markham, 

 in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society of London; and in support of this belief 

 the incidental mention of the currents contained in the report from the relief steamer Rodgers is 

 quoted. These reports are said to show no northerly current in the vicinity of Wrangel Island, 

 but a regular tidal current, with a rise and fall of 5 feet. The New York Herald correspondent 

 with the Rodgers, however, says it was surprising to see the ice moving constantly along the 



