C H A P . shaped cliff at the north-western point of the island, the soundings
July,
1826.
again deepened, and changed to sand as at first.
At night the fog cleared away for a short time, and we saw the
Asiatic coast about Tschukutskoi N o ss; but it soon returned, and with it
a light air in the contrary direction to our course. The next day, as we
could make no progress, the trawl was put overboard, in the hope of
providing a fresh meal for the ship’s company; but after remaining
down a considerable time, it came up with only a sculpen (cotti/s scor-
pius), a few specimens of moluscm, and crustaeefe, consisting principally
of maias. In the evening. Lieutenant Peard was more successful in
procuring specimens with the dredge, which supplied us with a great
variety of invertebral animals, consisting of asterias, holothurias, echini,
amphitrites, ascidias, actinias, euryales, murex, chiton crinitus, nereides,
maias, gammarus, and pagiirus, the latter inhabiting chiefly old shells
of the murex genus. This was in seventeen fathoms over a muddy
bottom, several leagues from the island.
About noon the fog dispersed, and we saw nearly the whole extent
of the St. Lawrence Island, from the N. AV. cape we had rounded the
preceding night to the point near which Cook reached close in with,
after his departure from Norton Sound. The middle of this island was
so low, that to us it appeared to be divided, and I concluded, as both
Cook and Clerke had done before, that it was so ; circumstances did not,
however, admit of my making this examination, and the connexion of
the two islands was left for the discovery of Captain Schismareff of the
Russian navy. The hills situated upon the eastern part of the island,
to which Cook gave the name of his companion Captain Clerke, are
the highest part of St. Lawrence Island, and were at this time deeply
buried in snow.
The current off here, on one trial, ran N. E. five-eighths of a mile
per hour, and on another, N. 60” E. seven-eighths of a mile per hour:
as observations on this interesting subject were repeatedly made, they
wiU be classed in a table in the Appendix.
Lavoured with a fair wind, on the 19th we saw King’s Island;
which, though small, is high and rugged, and has low land at its base,
with apparently breakers off its south extreme.
I I . i
AVe had now advanced sufficiently far to the northward to carry C F to P .
on our operations at midnight; an advantage in the navigation of a n --------
unfrequented sea which often precludes the necessity of lying to.
Julv,
1826.
I t was on one of those beautiful still nights, well known to all who
have visited the arctic regions, when the sky is without a cloud, and when
the midnight sun, scarcely his own diameter below the horizon, tinges
with a bright hue all the northern circle—when the ship, propelled
by an increasing breeze, glides rapidly along a smooth sea, starthng
from her path flocks of lummes and dovekies, and other aquatic birds,
whose flight may, from the stillness of the night, be traced by the ear to
a considerable distance—that we approached the strait that separates the
two great continents, not a little anxious that the fog, the almost certain
successor to a fine day in high latitudes, should hold off until we had
satisfactorily decided a geographical question of some importance, as
connected with our immortal countryman, Captain Cook. That excellent
navigator, in his discoveries of these seas, placed three islands m the
middle of the strait (the Diomede Islands). Kotzebue, however, in
passing them, fancied he saw a fourth, and conjectured that it must have
been either overlooked by Cook and Clerke, or that it had been since
raised by an earthquake *. The hope of being the first to determine the
question, added to a patriotic feeling for the honour of our countrymen,
increased in an especial degree our anxiety to advance. The land on the
south side of St. Lawrence Bay first made its appearance, and next the
lofty mountains at the back of Cape Prince of AVales, then hiU after hill
rose alternately on either bow, curiously refracted, and assuming all the
varied forms which that phenomenon of the atmosphere is known to occasion.
At last, at the distance of fifty miles, the Diomede Islands, and
the eastern Cape of Asia, rose above the horizon of our mast-head. But,
as if to teach us the necessity of patience in the sea we were about to
navigate, before we had satisfied our doubts, a thick fog enveloped every
thing in obscurity. AVe continued to run on, assisted by a strong
northerly current, until seven o’clock the next morning, when the
• Some doubt, it appears, was created in th e minds o f th e Russians themselves as to
this supposed discovery, as we understood a t Petropaulski, th a t a large wager had been lard
about it.
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