along the coast from the east, withheld me.”  He afterwards had an interview with the Americans who came in these baydares:  he found that they prized tobacco very highly, and that they received this and other European goods from the natives of the opposite coast of Asia.  It was probably the first time in their lives that these Americans had seen Europeans.  They were of the middle size; robust and healthy; ugly and dirty; with small eyes, and very high cheek bones:  “they bore holes on each side of their mouths, in which they wear morse bones, ornamented with blue glass beads, which give them a most frightful appearance.  Their dresses, which are made of skins, are of the same cut as the Parka, in Kamtschatka; only that there they reach to the feet, and here hardly cover the knee:  besides this, they wear pantaloons, and small half boots of seal skins.”

The latitude of this place, or rather of the ship’s anchorage, at the time this survey was made, was 66 deg. 42’ 30”, and the longitude 164 deg. 12’ 50”.  There were several circumstances which induced Kotzebue to hope that he had at length found the channel which led to the Atlantic:  nothing was seen but sea to the eastward, and a strong current ran to the north-east.  Under these circumstances, thirteen days were occupied in examining the shores of this opening; but no outlet was discovered, except one to the south-east, which seemed to communicate with Norton Sound, and a channel on the western side, which of course could not be the one sought for.  Kotzebue, however, remarks, “I certainly hope that this sound may lead to important discoveries next year; and though a north-east passage may not with certainty be depended on, yet I believe I shall be able to penetrate much farther to the east, as the land has very deep indentures.”  The name of Kotzebue’s Sound was given to this inlet.  Next year he returned to prosecute his discovery; but in consequence of an accident which happened to the ship, and a very dangerous blow which he received at the same time, he abandoned the attempt.

That there is an opening, either by Kotzebue’s Inlet or near to it, to the Frozen Ocean, is probable, not only from the circumstances we have mentioned of an opening and a strong current to the north-east having been observed, but also from other circumstances noticed in the account of this voyage.  This current brings large quantities of drift wood into Kotzebue’s Sound:  and in the breaking up of the ice in the sea of Kamschatka, the icebergs and fields of ice do not drift, as in the Atlantic, to the south, nor do they drive to the Atlantic islands, but into the strait to the north.  The direction of the current was always north-east in Behring’s Straits; and it was so strong and rapid, as to carry the ship fifty miles in twenty-four hours; that is, above two miles an hour.  On the Asiatic side of the strait it ran at the rate of three miles an hour; and even with a fresh north wind, it ran equally strong from