10 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



A large amount of information in regard to the climate of these islands has been collected and recorded by the 

 signal service, United States army, and similar observations are still continued by the agents of the Alaska 

 Commercial Company. I simply remark here, that the winter which I passed upon St. Paul island (1872-'73) was 

 one of great severity, and, according to the natives, such as is very seldom experienced. Cold as it was, however, 

 the lowest marking of the thermometer was only 12 Fahr. below zero, and that lasted but a few hours during a single 

 day in February, while the mean of that month was 18 above. I found that March was the coldest mouth. Then 

 the mean was 12 above, and I have since learned that March continues to be the meanest mouth of the year. The 

 lowest average of a usual winter ranges from 22 to 26 above zero; but these quiet figures are simply inadequate 

 to impress the reader with the exceeding discomfort of the winter in that locality. It is the wind that tortures and 

 cripples out-door exercise there, as it does on all the sea-coast and islands of Alaska. It is blowing, blowing, from 

 every point of the compass at all times; it is an everlasting succession of furious gales, laden with snow and sleety 

 spiculffi, whirling in great drifts to-day, while to-morrow the "boorga" will blow from a quarter directly opposite, 

 and reverse its rift-building of the day preceding. 



Without being cold enough to suffer, one is literally confined and chained to his room from December uutil 

 April by this a3oliau tension. I remember very-well that, during the winter of 1872-'73, 1 was watching, with all the 

 impatience which a man in full health and tired of confinement can possess, every opportunity to seize upon quiet 

 intervals between the storms, in which I could make short trips along the tracks over which I was habituated 

 to walk during the summer; yet, in all lhat hyemal season I got out but three times; and then only by the exertion 

 of great physical energy. Ou a day in March, for example, the velocity of the wind at St. Paul, recorded by one 

 of the signal service anemometers, was at the rate of 88 miles per hour, with as low a temperature as 4! 

 This particular wind-storm, with snow, blew at such a velocity for six days without an hour's cessation, while the 

 natives passed from house to house crawling on all-fours : no man could stand up against it, and no man wanted 

 to. At a much higher temperature say at 15 or 16 above zero with the wind blowing only 20 or 25 miles an 

 hour, it is necessary, when journeying, to be most thoroughly wrapped up, to guard against freezing. 



As I have said, there are here virtually but two seasons winter and summer. To the former belongs November 

 and the following months up to the end of April, with a mean temperature of 20 to 28 ; while the transition of 

 summer is but a very slight elevation of that temperature, not more than 15^ or 20. Of the summer months, July, 

 perhaps, is the warmest, with an average temperature between 46 and 50 in ordinary seasons. When the sun 

 breaks out through the fog, and bathes the dripping, water soaked hills and flats of the island in its hot flood of 

 light, 1 have known the thermometer to rise to 60 and 64 in the shade, while the natives crawled out of the 

 fervent and unwonted heat, anathematizing its brilliancy and potency. Sunshine does them no good ; for, like the 

 seals, they seem under its influence to swell up at the neck. A little of it suffices handsomely for both Aleuts and 

 pinnipedia, to whom the ordinary atmosphere is much more agreeable. 



It is astonishing how rapidly snow melts here. This is due, probably, 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 3G, 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 the Pribylov 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 hydrographers 

 recognize upon the Atlantic 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 continued through Bering's straits, and drifts steadily off up to the northeast, until it is lost beyond Point Barrow. 

 That this pelagic circulation exists, is clearly proven by the logs of the whalers, who, from 1845 to 1850, 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 Pribylov, at the time of his discovery of the islands, 

 nearly one hundred years ago, and which have remained ever since. 



Without this 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 

 antipodes of his birih. 



* The rise and fall of tide at the seal-islands I carefully watched one whole season at St. Paul. The irregularity, however, of ebb and 

 How, is t.he most, prominent feature of the matter. The highest rise in the spring tides was a trifle over four feet, while that of the neap 

 tides not much over two. Owing to the nature of the ease, it is impossible to prepare a tidal calendar for Alaska, above the Aleutian 

 island*, which will even faintly foreshadow a correct registration in advance. 



