The warm current running continually northward through 
Behring strait carries the ice-fields away, and affords clear scope 
to the whalers. The shoalness of the Arctic, the mildness of 
the climate, and the 4 blessed power of sunshine,’ facilitates the 
capture and cutting in of the huge fat whales. Good fares have 
been obtained late in the month of October as high as the 73°. 
This fact demonstrates the genial temperature prevailing in 
those regions. “Barque ‘Helen Snow,’ Capt. Campbell, re¬ 
ports:—Left Japan, April 14tli, made the ice 8th of May, lat. 
60° 10 north, Ion. 116° east; took first whale 17th of August; 
the last, Oct. 2d, lat. 70° 50 north, Ion. 163° 40 west; Oct. 
4th, kept off for the strait.”— Hav. Gazette , Nov. 9, 1870. 
“ The Kamschatka current after passing through Behring 
Strait inclines toward the coast of America, as is fully proved 
by the existence of driftwood along the shores and in the waters 
of the current, while little or none is found on the Asiatic coast 
or in the waters adjacent. We have this season conversed with 
whaling captains who left the Arctic as late as Oct. 12th, and 
their experience of years confirms the above statements. This 
current passes through Behring Strait with a velocity. . . . 
Moreover, the interesting fact may be stated that there has rare¬ 
ly been such an open season in the Arctic as that just passed. 
Capt. Williams went as far westward as 188°, and had nothing 
but open sea before him. Capt. Thomas went as far as 72° 55.” 
— Davidson. 
Population, Two hundred years ago all that region watered 
by the Amoor river was Tartar in every respect, today it is 
Russian. The population is mainly composed of criminal con¬ 
victs or political exiles, some of whom are of noble birth, all 
banished from the western dominions of the Czar; many arose 
from the lowest servitude in the mines, and by industry and 
sobriety have become proprietors of large tracts of land and 
considerable wealth. This element, though basking in affluence, 
seldom obtains the imperial pardon or leave to visit their native 
country. A very large majority of these exiles never hope or 
even look for the privilege of leaving those regions; they are 
compelled to waste their sweetness on the frigid air of that 
country, unless they take “ French leave ” and pass over the 
steppes of Asia among the Tartars, who are hospitable to the 
exiles and usually welcome them to their country. Many of the 
political exiles arc at liberty to labor at any vocation, *and to 
