Drift Ice and Currents of the North Atlantic. 381 



On the homeward passage of the Acadia, on the 6th of June, the 

 same object was seen, and the immediate exclamation on board 

 was, " There's our old friend, St. Paul's." In the interim be- 

 tween the two views, the iceberg had drifted about seventy 

 miles.* 



An immense ice-island was seen on the 10th July, 1841, in lat- 

 itude 43° 54', longitude 58° 12', by Captain Ricker, of the 

 Apollo, at Boston. He reports that his thermometer fell when 

 near it forty degrees. 



It may be proper to state here, that many ice observations have 

 been placed on the chart without a reference to the date or the 

 vessel which reported them, and the want of room for the refer- 

 ences has rendered this in a degree unavoidable. In compiling 

 the chart, one hundred and fifty seven separate reports have been 

 consulted, the general character of which may be estimated by 

 the foregoing examples. Many other accounts might have been 

 obtained, but it is believed that these are sufficient for an approx- 

 imate estimate of the course and positions of the ice in various 

 s^sons, so far as relates to the routes of vessels coming from Eu- 

 ropean ports. 



On the Westerly tendencies of the Polar Ice-currents, and their 

 Influence on the Gulf Stream. 



In further noticing the westerly and southerly progress of the 

 cold currents from the arctic regions, we avail ourselves of the 

 researches of Rennell, who states that '' a current from Green- 

 land and the Arctic Sea joins the Gulf Stream on the east of the 

 Grand Bank of Newfoundland, somewhere about latitude 44°, 

 and between the meridians of 44° and 47°. In the month of 

 May its direction has been found to be between S. W. by S. and 

 S., and its temperature [apart from the ice] 43° to 47° of Fah- 

 renheit. The temperature taken not far to the eastward of it 

 was 62° to 63°, and an easterly current of 30 miles [per day] 

 of the same water (i. e. gulf water,) was found at a distance from 

 the eastern edge of the S. W. by S. cold stream. This is, doubt- 

 less, the current that brings down the ice from Greenland, &c., 

 to the east of the bank of Newfoundland, and ice has been seen 

 in the line of this very current, by different persons in different 



* English paper. 

 Vol. xLviii, No. 2.— Jan. -March, 1845, 49 



