l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I28 



0.75 to 2 knots an hour. The following tabulation was compiled from 

 his data : 



Rate of drift 

 Ship Date Knots Remarks 



Contest 8-16-71 1.5 



J ir eh Perry 8-16-72 2.5 15 miles northeast of Point Barrow 



" " 7-20-73 2.0 Off Point Belcher. Strong currents. 



" " 8-14-73 Could barely get around Point Bar- 



row because of the strength of the 

 current. 



In August 1878 the bark Coral experienced a 12-day blow from 

 the east, with a resulting current toward the west-southwest. On the 

 twelfth day, when the wind changed from east to southwest, the cur- 

 rent also changed within a few hours, running strong toward the 

 northeast, indicating the general tendency of the current to run toward 

 the northeast alongshore at and to the southwest of Point Barrow. 



One day when my boatman Max Adams and I had landed at the 

 Point, I mentioned that the current was very strong toward the north- 

 east. Max, who had spent his life boating and hunting at Point Bar- 

 row said, "Oh, yes, sometimes he rim like river same way." 



Ernest F. Chafe (1918) states that the whaler Karluk drifted 

 northwest 2 miles an hour from Camden Bay past Point Barrow. 

 Upon reaching the 75th parallel of latitude, it began a southwesterly 

 drift. The ship was abandoned at 73° N., 178° W., at a 38-fathom 

 depth, 80 miles north of Wrangell Island, 200 miles from Siberia. 



Dall also mentions logs of whalers that told of shifting from one 

 side of the Point to the other, depending on wind direction, to escape 

 rough seas. That Dall missed no reference to conditions at Point 

 Barrow that could be obtained from logs of whaling vessels and other 

 sources is shown by his reference to an article in the Daily Alta Cali- 

 fornian of San Francisco, in which Captain Fisher of the Sea Breeze 

 is quoted as saying, "Off Point Barrow a 3- or 4-knot current sets 

 regularly along the land northeastward which does not exist 50 miles 

 off shore." 



An interesting phenomenon that was noted by the writer, and one 

 that warrants more study, is the current at Eluitkak Pass (fig. i, D) 

 between the mainland spit and Doctor Island. As was mentioned 

 under "Geology," nowhere is Elson Lagoon deeper than 12 feet. Yet 

 the Pass is 46 feet deep in the center, and the current through it is 

 sufficiently strong to scour out all mud from the bottom, leaving only 

 stones and boulders. To the eastward, however, there are openings 

 everywhere, but no sign of currents between the islands. Why does 



