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- July 19 -

July 19, Point Hope to Cape Thompson and back.

The gale continued all night and early in the morning. The "Corwin" headed out around the point for the north in the teeth of the gale but such a sea was running that the Capt. decided it folly to proceed so she was turned about and ran back down the coast some 20 odd miles to behind Cape Thompson a bold rocky cliff or headland about 5 to 600 feet high and on the rugged and crumbling face of which myriads of amés were nesting some with fresh eggs and few if any with hatched young. Breeding in the higher & more inaccessible parts of the cliff were a great many Kotzbues [[Kotzebue's]] Kittiwakes so that the whole face of the bluff showed white for miles away from their excrements as we drew near the wind increased in violence and came tearing down the cliffs in "woollys" which could be seen striking in a whirl upon the water beating it into spray and carrying clouds of it up in a great ragged pillar even to the top of the cliff - With the glasses as we passed along we could see every jagged point of rock offering foothold was occupied by a bird and every shelf like projection  bore a solid array of amés sitting almost upright & from a distance with their white breasts outward appearing like rows of bottles bearing large white labels. Two narrow [[strike through]] canyons [[/strike through]] cuts in the cliffs (one to the southward giving a passage to a stream of sparkling clear snow water flowing over a rocky bed into the sea) just in the middle of the bluffs were each 

Transcription Notes:
Kotzebue's Kittiwake