434 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUERENTS. 



It thus brings into warmer latitudes all the ice which remains from the 

 melting influences of the Arctic summer, and also is continually floating 

 Southwards that which collects in Bafiin's Bay and its inlets. Its South- 

 ward drift is constant, winter and summer, as demonstrated by the drift 

 of several vessels of the Arctic searching squadrons — as the Grinnell Ex- 

 pedition, Sir James Ross, H.M.S. Eesolute, Sir L. M'Clintock in the Fox, 

 &G. A more recent example is that of Captain Tyson and nineteen of the 

 crew of the U.S. vessel Polaris. On October 14th, 1871, they became 

 separated from their ship in lat. 77° or 78° N., South of Littleton Island, 

 and drifted on a floe for more than 1,500 miles, being rescued about 

 6 months later, on April 30th, 1872, by a sealing steamer near the Strait 

 of Belle Isle. They supported life by hunting and fishing. 



About 10 miles per day may be taken as the drift down Baffin's Bay, 

 as estimated by the author in the "Journal of the Royal Geographical 

 Society," quoted previously. 



(431.) The Baffin's Bay Current and Spitzbergen Current having united, 

 set with great force down the coast of Labrador, the Westward tendency 

 being probably owing to the earth's rotation, which here rapidly increases 

 Southwardly in these parallels. It sets along the Labrador coast at rates 

 varying from 10 to 36 miles a day, but is very much influenced by the 

 winds near the coast. When navigating near the East coast of Newfound- 

 land, with Easterly and N.E. winds (which are accompanied by thick 

 weather), mariners must guard against a strong indraught into the great 

 bays of this coast. 



(432.) But the chief interest of this current to the sailor is the drift ice 

 and great icebergs which it floats Southward across his track, con- 

 stituting one of the most formidable dangers of the Transatlantic naviga- 

 tion. As this is the most important feature it has, it will be dilated on 

 more fully hereafter, as the Umits within which these ice-drifts are 

 liable to be encountered are also the limits of the cold Arctic Current now 

 being discussed. 



(433.) The waters of the Arctic Ocean are thus brought again into that 

 system of circulation which gives to sea- water a universal character (246). 

 In former years it was not thought that its effects extended farther than 

 this, and the cool S.W. current inside the Gulf Stream was considered to 

 be an eddy of that great current, whose temperature was dependent on 

 the shallowness of the soundings, in contradistinction to the supposed 

 unfathomable depths of the Gulf Stream. Captain Pornton, as stated in 

 the earlier editions of this work, had, however, been led to conclude that 

 the Southward drift past Newfoundland, and the current from the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, with the eddy from the Gulf Stream, combined to form the 

 counter-current in question. 



Its true character was first argued out by Mr. W. C. Redfield, a name 

 well known to science. He drew up a summary of remarks and sugges- 

 tions for the observers of the United States Exploring Expedition, under 

 Captain Wilkes, in 1838, and which was read before the American 

 Philosophical Society in May, 1843. From that paper we will make a 

 few extracts : — 



" From what source is that South- Westerly current derived, which 



