INOMES ONG DEE ROUND HORE SPE, ALASIGCA 185 
The relative position of shoals and coastal headlands likewise 
indicates the influence of the northerly current. An extensive shoal 
extends northward from Cape Prince of Wales for many miles with 
comparatively deep water south of the cape. At Point Hope a 
detached shoal with four and one-half feet of water over it lies to the 
north of the Point with deep water south of the Point. Cape Lis- 
burne likewise has an outlying shoal with five fathoms of water over 
it, but it lies wholly to the north of the cape. At Point Barrow there 
is also a shoal lying wholly to the north of the Point." 
The bars cited, however, differ from the Point Hope spit in run- 
ning parallel with the shore. Like them the Point Hope spit appears 
to have deflected the stream to the north, but unlike them it extends 
out nearly at right angles to the coast line. The considerable volume 
- of the discharge of the Kukpuk River has no doubt been an important 
factor in neutralizing the tendency of the-coastal current to turn the 
spit to the north. 
In this connection tidal influence may also be considered. The 
tide, although small in the Arctic Ocean, is not a negligible element 
in considering the development of shore-line features. The mean 
range of the tides recorded for the northwest coast of Alaska and the 
adjacent parts of Siberia ranges from .2 of a foot? to 2} feet.s The 
tide at Point Hope is probably considerably less than two feet, but it 
is sufficient to give at the ebb a current to the southwest off the north- 
west shore of Point Hope.4 This tidal-ebb current from the northeast 
would neutralize the tendency of the coast current to turn the point 
of the spit northward and the collision of the two currents would lead 
to the shore waste which they carried being dropped so as to build 
the point in a westerly direction. The cliffs forming the coast line 
at Cape Thompson have a northwest-southeast trend for six miles 
or more, giving the coast current its initial northwesterly or seaward 
trend. North of the Kukpuk River for nearly thirty-five miles the 
coast line of cliffs trends nearly north and south. ‘This contrast in 
the trend of the coast on the north and the south sides of the point 
1 U. S. Hydrographic Office, Chart of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. 
2 Harris, Eighth Intern. Cong. of Geog. p. 399, 1905. 
3 DeLong, Voyage of the ‘‘ Jeannette,” p. 890, 1883. 
4 Capt. F. W. Beechey, op. cit., p. 577. 
