Mabch 13, 1885. 



SCIENCE. 



215 



sight from the westward would pass out of view of 

 his station to the eastward in from three to four 

 tides, this indicating an easterly set of upwards of 

 ten miles a day. 



The icebergs seen from the Neptune in Hudson 

 Strait in August and September were not more 

 numerous, and would form no greater barrier to 

 navigation, than those often met with off the Strait 

 of Belle Isle, where, and off the Labrador coast 

 north of it, a great number were encountered on the 

 outward voyage of the Neptune. 



Ordinary field-ice was met with off North Bluff, on 

 the 11th of August, which, though it would have com- 

 pelled an ordinary iron steamer to go dead slow, gave 

 no trouble to the Neptune; the mate on watch run- 

 ning the ship at full speed between the pans, rarely 

 touching one of them. In Ashe Inlet the ice came 

 in with the flood-tide, and set so fast that the Eskimo 

 were able to walk off to the ship, a distance of three- 

 quarters of a mile. Similar ice was found on the 

 south shore, opposite, but none in the middle of the 

 strait so far east. In proceeding from this point to 

 Salisbury Island, long strings of ice were frequently 

 seen; but, as their direction was parallel to the course, 

 the vessel coasted round them. The Eskimo reported 

 that they had never seen the ice hang to the shores 

 so late in the season, and that at all points there 

 were unusually great quantities. On the homeward 

 voyage none of this field-ice was seen. 



Off Nottingham Island the ice got so heavy and 

 close, that the attempt to force the ship through it was 

 given up, after one blade of the propeller had been 

 broken off, — an accident that entailed a delay of 

 three days to fit in a new fan. In this ice, too, were 

 seen four vessels, fast in the channel to the south- 

 ward; one of them being the outgoing Hudson-Bay 

 company's vessel, and another an American whaling- 

 schooner. This ice was of an altogether different 

 type from that hitherto met. Some of it, left dry at 

 low water, was over forty feet in thickness, — not 

 field-ice, thickened by the piling of pan on pan, but a 

 solid blue sheet of ice, which had evidently been frozen 

 just as it was found. The average thickness of the 

 ice passed through, in the neighborhood of Port De- 

 Boucherville, was upwards of fifteen feet. 



From the reports of the Hudson-Bay company's 

 ships, the evidence of Capt. Fisher's letter above 

 quoted, and the experience of the Eskimo encoun- 

 tered, the conclusion is reached that 1883 and 1884 

 were exceptionally severe seasons, and the naviga- 

 tion more than ordinarily interrupted by ice; but 

 the average of many years' observations at Fort 

 Churchill, the only known harbor on the west coast 

 of the bay, shows that the middle of June and the 

 middle of November would be the extreme limits of 

 time during which approach to that coast would be 

 possible; and these limits agree closely with those of 

 the open season in Nachvak harbor, on the Atlantic 

 coast. 



If the Neptune had been running direct from Cape 

 Chudleigh to Churchill, instead of coasting, it is 

 considered that she would not have been delayed 

 by ice more than forty-eight hours ; but no ordinary 



iron steamship, built as a modern freight-boat is, 

 could have got through the heavier ice met, without 

 incurring serious risk, if not actual disaster. 



From the resident factor at Churchill it was 

 learned that the bay never freezes so far out but 

 that clear water can be seen. From the greater heat 

 of the water, the absence of icebergs at all seasons, 

 and the absence of field-ice on the voyage, even at 

 Chesterfield Inlet, in the extreme north-west corner 

 of the bay, it is evident that the bay itself is naviga- 

 ble for a much longer period each season than the 

 strait. 



Some high tides and heavy currents were noticed. 

 During two days in which the Neptune was lying-to 

 off Cape Chudleigh, in fog, she was set forty miles 

 to the southward, which indicates the necessity for 

 caution in approaching the strait in thick weather. 

 At Port Burwell the rise of spring tides is nineteen 

 feet, with a current of about four knots in Grey 

 Strait, which causes, when the wind is adverse, an 

 ugly sea. At Ashe's Inlet there is a rise of thirty- 

 two feet, with a strong tide-race, and a current 

 sometimes reaching six knots within three miles of 

 the shore. At Fort Chimo the rise of spring tides is 

 thirty-eight feet and a half. At Stupart's Bay there 

 is a rise of twenty-eight feet; but the currents are 

 not so swift as on the opposite shore, probably be- 

 cause the water is shallower. 



Complete meteorological observations were taken 

 on board the Neptune during the voyage, which when 

 afterwards compared with those taken during the 

 same period at Belle Isle, — a station of the meteoro- 

 logical service in the regular summer trade route 

 between Quebec and Europe, — showed that dur- 

 ing August and September the weather of Hudson 

 Strait, so far as affects navigation, compared favor- 

 ably with that of the Strait of Belle Isle; there being- 

 eleven heavy gales at the latter place against three 

 in the former, as well as more than double the 

 amount of fog. 



Lieut. Gordon, in concluding his report, urges, that, 

 as observations of one year will probably not give 

 a fair average, the stations should be continued for a 

 second year, and two or three of them even for a 

 third year; that next year's expedition should leave 

 Halifax by the middle of May, and relieve the sta- 

 tions, or, if the ice prevented this, the ship should 

 push on and investigate once for all the condition 

 of the ice in the strait and bay in the early part of 

 the season. If the stations could be relieved, an 

 effort should be made to reach Churchill by the open- 

 ing of navigation there, — about the 15th of June; 

 then a running survey should be made on the east 

 coast, some deep-sea dredging and sounding done, 

 and beacons erected on the low-lying shores of Mans- 

 field and Southampton islands. This would allow 

 the ship to reach the strait again by the middle of 

 August, when any spare time could be employed in 

 surveying it more accurately; or as an alternative, 

 the fishing, especially the whaling in Bowe's Wel- 

 come, which is becoming of some importance, might 

 be investigated with a view to proper regulation of 

 the trade. Wm. P. Axdeksox. 



