562 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, of seven knots, in order, as the shoal appeared to be very narrow, that 
she might not hang, in the event of touching the ground. 
Oct The sea ran very high, and we entered the broken water in 
'' breathless suspense, as there was very little prospect of saving the ship, 
in the event of her becoming fixed upon the shoal. Four fathoms and 
a half was communicated from the channels, a depth in which it may 
be recollected we disturbed the bottom in crossing the bar of San 
F rancisco ; the same depth was again reported, and we pursued our 
course momentarily expecting to strike. Fortunately this was the least 
depth of water, and before long our soundings increased to twenty 
fathoms, and having escaped the danger, we resumed our course for the 
strait. 
This shoal, which appears to extend from Cape Prince of Wales, 
taking the direction of the current through the strait, is extremely dan- 
gerous, in consequence of the water shoaling so suddenly, and having 
deep water within it, by which a ship coming from the northward mav 
be led down between the shoal and the land, w'ithout any suspicion 
of her danger. Though we had nothing less than twenty-seven feet 
water, as near as the soundings could be ascertained in so high a sea, 
yet, from the appearance of the breakers outside the place where the 
ship crossed, the depth is probably less. It is remarkable that this spit 
of sand, extending so far as it does from the land, should have hitherto 
escaped the observation of the Eussians as well as of our countrymen. 
Cook, in his chart, marks five fathoms close off the cape, and Kotzebue 
three, but this spit appeared to extend six or seven miles from it : it 
is true that the weather was very hazy, and we might have been de- 
ceived in our distance from the shore ; but it is also probable that the 
spit may be extending itself rapidly. 
We passed Beering’s Strait about one o’clock, as usual with a 
close reefed topsail breeze, and afterwards ran with a fresh gale until 
midnight, when, as I wished to see the eastern end of St. Lawrence 
Island, we rounded to for daylight. It was, however, of little con- 
sec|uence, as the weather was so foggy the next day that we could not 
see far around us. As we approached the island, flocks of alca crestatella 
and of eider and king ducks, and several species of phaloropes, flew about 
