59 



being sighted in the form of an attenuated tongue stretched south- 

 ward along the edge of the slope to latitude 43° 23' on April 5. Its 

 movement between the 4th and 5th was at the rate of 1 knot per 

 hour parallel to the slope, while three days after, during the interim 

 of which a westerly gale had prevailed, no vestiges were to be found 

 except an occasional growler here and there well offshore of the 

 slope. On the 29th we received a report from the master of the 

 sealing steamer Terra Nova (Captain Kean), containing a general 

 account of field ice conditions northward along the east coast of 

 Newfoundland. He stated having found the main pack about 40 

 miles north of Funk Island in the early part of March where also were 

 loacted the seals. Northerly winds prevailed, driving the ice into 

 the rivers and bays along the coast, more or less blocking the entire 

 coast line southward to Bonavista Bay. Captain Kean had com- 

 pleted the catch by the 20th and was leaving the western edge of 

 the pack, then about 100 miles east-northeast of Cape Race. The 

 field ice this year, he stated, was much nearer land than last year and 

 there did not appear to be a great quantity of bergs. Field ice was 

 reported off and on pretty nearly throughout the entire month's 

 span and its eastern limits, to the northward, coincided very closely 

 with the forty-seventh meridian. The last few days of the month 

 (the 28th and 29th), field ice emerged again southward to within 

 80 miles of its farthest southern point described April 5. On April 

 29 a patch was reported in latitude 44° 30', longitude 48°. 



Summarizing for the month we estimate that there were a total of 

 58 bergs south of the forty-eighth parallel, the ilormal number being 

 78; this is approximately 33 per cent less than the average. 



MAY 



The reader will recall that during April a group of three bergs had 

 been reported in an extreme southerly position on the east side of the 

 Banks, latitude 44°, on the 8th instant. No bergs had been reported 

 so far south as this throughout the month untU the last few days, the 

 28th and 29th, when a group of three bergs were sighted by a passing 

 steamer between the forty-fourth and forty-fifth parallels in the 

 deep water just off the slope. The first report for the month of May, 

 which indicated that the bergs were on the move to the southward, 

 was that of the 2d instant when a berg was sighted in latitude 44° 10' 

 on the east side of the Banks. The patrol ship at the time was a few 

 miles southeast, hove to in a northwesterly gale but the position of 

 this berg was regarded with considerable interest as it was the second 

 one for the year, apparently, which was in a critical position to drift 

 southward of the Tail. Accordingly as soon as the gale abated we 

 commenced efforts to locate it and so on from the 3d to 11th 

 instant we carried on a search estimating the probable drift from day 

 32036—27 5 



