290 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 
ern waters of the strait can only be accounted for by this 
current, for they must all come from Davis strait, there being 
no glaciers to produce them on the lands fronting on the strait 
or bay. These icebergs have been seen as far west as the western 
end of Salisbury island, almost to the entrance of Hudson bay. 
The east-flowing current of the south side of the strait was 
proved by the drift of the Neptune when beset in the ice off 
Cape Wolstenholme, and later, off Cape Weggs. In the former 
instance the drift of the ship was thirty miles in twenty-four 
hours, while in the latter it was twenty miles in twenty hours. 
Driftwood borne north on the current of the east side of Hud- 
son bay is not rare on the southern shores of the western part of 
the strait, while large quantities of it are found on the eastern 
shores of Ungava bay, having been drifted east and north from 
the mouths of the rivers emptying into the head of that bay. 
The current flowing westward along the north side of the 
strait sweeps northward up the east side of Fox channel, rounds 
the head of that large northern bay, and then flows southward 
along the east side of Southampton, bringing with it the heavy 
ice from the northern parts of Fox channel, so that heavy drift 
ice is almost always found to the north of the eastern entrance 
to Evans strait, and often comes sufficiently south to partly 
block the channel between Mansfield and Coats islands. 
The current from the north along the western shores of Hud- 
son bay is not important as regards navigation, as it comes from 
the narrow waters of roes Welcome and does not transport a 
large quantity of field ice. 
Similar currents follow the shores of Baffin bay and Davis 
strait; on the east, or Greenland side, the flow is northward, 
while along the west side or that of the Arctic islands the cur- 
rent is southward, and carries on its surface great quantities of 
heavy field ice formed in these northern waters, together with 
extensive masses of Arctic ice which have passed south or east 
