( *7 ) 



IV. 



THE ARCTIC CURRENT AROUND GREENLAND. 



By Admiral E. Irminger, of the Danish Navy.' 



Several hydrographers 2 assert that a current from the ocean 

 around Spitsbergen continues its course along the E. coast of 

 Greenland, and thence in a nearly straight line towards the banks 

 of Newfoundland. In this opinion I do not agree, and give my 

 reasons as follows. 



Considerable quantities of ice are annually brought with the 

 current from the ocean around Spitzbergen to the s. and s.w. along 

 the e. coast of Greenland, 3 around Cape Farewell, and into Davis 

 Strait. 



These enormous masses of ice are frequently drifted so close to 

 the southern part of the coast of Greenland that navigation through 

 it is impossible. Experience has taught the captains who every 

 year navigate between Copenhagen and the Greenland colonies 

 (which all are situated on the W. side of Greenland) that, on going 



1 From the ' Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,' vol. xxvi. 



2 Kerhallet, Berghaus, and others. 



3 See Graah, Scoresby, &c, as well as the ' Accounts of the Whalers in the year 

 1777, by Larens Hansen, Director of the School at Ribe,' in Denmark. These 

 last-mentioned accounts of ten whalers, with their captains, and printed letters 

 from several of these captains to the above-mentioned L. Hansen, give a striking 

 proof of the current and its rapidity from the ocean around Spitzbergen to the 

 s.w. along the E. coast of Greenland. The said ten vessels were enclosed in the 

 ice in June 1777, in about 76° lat.N., between Spitzbergen and Jan-Mayen island, 

 and were carried, constantly enclosed by the ice, in a south- westerly direction, 

 between Iceland and Greenland, very often in sight of the Greenland coast. By 

 degrees all the vessels were lost, being crushed by the ice ; the last vessel on the 

 11th of ' tetober, in <il lat. n , in Bight of < Greenland. Of the crewsof these vessels, 

 which consisted of about 450 men, only 1 1<; (whose names I have before me) were 

 so fortunate as to save their lives, and get ashore from the ice in the month of 

 October and beginning of November, on the coast around Oape Farewell. By 

 calculating the distance between Cape Farewell and the place where the vessels 

 were enclosed in the ice between Spitzbergen and Jan-Mayen. it gives a distance 

 of about 1400 nautie miles, and the time the ice occupied in drifting from the 

 above-mentioned place to (Jape Farewell heing about four months, the rapidity of 

 this current has a mean of at hast between I I and 12 nautie miles per 24 hours. 



