THROUGH WONDERLAND . 
79 
springs, with the thermometer soaring up above the hundreds ; for, m a day or 
two, by way of strange contrast, you will be among glaciers and icebergs tower¬ 
ing as far in feet above your head. 
The only way out of Sitka harbor, without putting to sea, is back through Peril 
Straits again ; and, passing back, one can hardly realize that it is the same water¬ 
way, so radically different are the views presented. In the harbor of Sitka is 
Japonskoi (Japanese) Island, which may be identified by the captain’s chart of 
the harbor, and which has a curious history. . Here, about eighty years ago, an 
old Japanese junk, that had drifted across the sea on the Kuro-Siwo, or Japan¬ 
ese current, was stranded, and the Russians kindly cared for the castaway 
sailors who had survived the dreadful drift, and returned them to their country, 
after an experience that is seldom equaled, even in the romantic accounts of 
maritime misfortunes. The drifting of Japanese junks, and those of adjacent 
countries, is not so infrequent as one would suppose, and this fact might set the 
reflective man to thinking as to the ethnical possibilities accruing therefrom, the 
settlement of North America, etc. 
This Kuro-Siwo, or Japanese current,—sometimes called black current, or 
Japanese black current, from its hue,—corresponds in many ways to the Gulf 
Stream of the Atlantic : like it, its waters are warmed in the equatorial regions 
under a vertical sun ; and, like it, a great portion of these waters are carried 
northward in its flow, and their heat poured upon the eastern shores of its ocean, 
till their climate is phenomenally temperate compared with the western shores in 
the same parallels. Sitka is said to have, as a result of facing this current, a 
mean winter temperature of a point half way between Baltimore and Washing¬ 
ton, or slightly milder than the winter temperature of Baltimore. It is said to 
be no unusual thing to suffer from an ice famine in Sitka. A short way inland 
the winters are not so temperate, more snow falling at that season, while rain 
characterizes the coast face ; but during the summer, or excursion season, these 
rains are not unpleasantly frequent. I take the following from a letter from 
Sitka, and published in the San Francisco Bulletin of January 9, 1882, before 
this country was really opened to excursionists, although the subject was being 
discussed, so much had been heard of this wonderland : 
“ The climate, as shown by the meteorological data collected by the signal 
service observers, is not of such a disagreeable character as some would have us 
believe. The scientific data collected and tabulated for the year 1881, as shown 
by the records at Sitka, Chilkoot, Juneau and Killisnoo, disprove most emphat¬ 
ically the seemingly malicious assertions in reference to its climate. 
April. 
May. 
June. 
July. 
Aug. 
Sept. 
Oct. 
Nov. 
Dec. 
Mean Temperature . 
42.5 
45-4 
51-2 
54-2 
56.7 
54- 
46.3 
41.8 
34-8 
Max. Temperature . 
56.5 
61. 
65. 
67. 
79- 
63.8 
57-8 
52.8 
44.9 
Min. Temperature.. 
31. 
31. 
41. 
43- 
43-9 
40.5 
32. 
22.5 
14. 
Total rainfall, inches 
4.21 
3-i 
1-54 
4.4 
1.98 
12.11 
5-04 
13-5 
10.52 
