128 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



Month. 



October 

 November 

 December 

 January 

 February 

 March 

 April . . 

 May .. 

 June .. 

 July .. 



On July 10th the water along the coast was sufficiently open to 

 send the whale-boat to Point Barrow. On the loth the ice broke 

 up, which was three days earlier than at Point Barrow. The ship 

 left Camden Bay on the 20th, but, owing to obstruction by the ice, 

 did not reach Point Barrow until the afternoon of August 7th. 



In comparing the monthly temperatures of Camden Bay and 

 Point Barrow, the increased temperature at the latter place is very 

 perceptible, and is, no doubt, occasioned by the open water. Neither 

 open water nor water-sky was seen from Camden Bay. In the 

 month of April an attempt was made to go north from the Enter- 

 prise with three sleighs; but on the second day the hummocks 

 were found to be impassable. One sleigh utterly broke dowD, and 

 several accidents from severe falls rendered it necessary to give up 

 the attempt and return to the ship. The snow-drift on these hum- 

 mocks lay in continuous ridges east and west, indicating that no 

 dislocation of the ice had taken place during the winter. 



The condition of the ice north of the American continent affords 

 a remarkable contrast with that on the Asiatic shore, where year 

 after year open water is found all the way from Kotelnoi Island to 

 North Cape, a distance nearly 1000 miles. Here, instead of a 

 compact pack, which in the neighbourhood of Point Barrow is 

 occasionally moved off the shore and brought back by the force of 

 the wind, but which appears to remain perfectly quiescent along 

 the coast to the eastward, the water, for some reason or other, is pre- 

 vented from freezing, and the traveller is continually brought to a 

 stop by the thinness of the ice or open water itself. This water, 

 on referring to Baron AVrangell's and M. Von Anjou's Journals, 

 will be found to be always in motion, and remarks such as follows 



1 On the 15th, 6-3 inches. 



