184 E. M. KINDLE 
on Seward Peninsula and it is reported to reach even as far to the east- 
ward as Point Barrow. McClintock found a current setting eastward 
to the east of Point Barrow with a rate of 18 miles per day. The 
depth of water affected by this current seems to be but a few feet. 
The writer observed evidence of this while aboard a schooner anchored 
off Cape Krusenstern in Kotzebue Sound during a calm. The waters 
of the sound swarm with various species of medusa and other plankton. 
From the rail of the anchored schooner these could be seen at and near 
the surface passing the vessel with a current of one and one-half or 
two miles an hour. A few feet below the surface, however—perhaps 
to or 12 feet—could be seen the same fauna almost or quite stationary. 
The shallow character of this northerly current in these waters was 
noted as early as 1826 by the careful observations of Captain F. W. 
Beechey who states concerning this current that “at the depth of nine 
feet its velocity was evidently diminished and at three and five fathoms 
there was none.”’? Captain Beechey observed also that the \ ater 
of this current was much fresher than the deeper waters. | 
The writer has had abundant opportunity to note the influence of 
this current on coast deposits in the course of a 200-mile journey in 
a small boat along the coast of Seward Peninsula and near Cape 
Thompson. Almost every stream between the lagoon west of Teller 
and Cape Prince of Wales is deflected to the right by a bar on entering 
the sea. The long narrow bar at the mouth of Kanauguk River is 
a typical example of these bars. In the case of small creeks the bar 
may be only three or four yards wide, but when present it invariably . 
turns the stream abruptly to the right as it is about to enter the sea. 
The tendency of the northerly current to deflect streams to the right 
is illustrated in Kotzebue Sound, by the bar at the mouth of the 
Inmachuk River. This bar has a length of about a third of a mile 
and extends nearly across the mouth of the valley occupied by the 
Inmachuk, forcing the river to enter the sound at the extreme east 
side of the valley. Asmall creek at Cape Thompson which is deflected 
abruptly to the right by a narrow bar is the nearest example to Point 
Hope of the influence of this current. 
« Capt. McClintock, A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin 
and His Company, p. 72, 1868. 
2 Op. cit., p. 578. 
