Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/477

Rh each burrow is ornamented by a little heap of slowly whitening bones.

To our party these little osteological collections were a goodly sight, settling at once the question of finding remains of the great auk, and indicating by their presence the existence of other bones yet to be brought to light. Fortunately, the anatomy of the great auk is peculiar, so that there could be no doubt but what the bones here and there strewed on the surface were the bones we had come so far to seek.

There is not the slightest possibility of any bone of the razorbill or murre being mistaken for that of their huge relative the great auk; and, in fact, of all the bones exhumed, there was little more than a handful belonging to any bird save this giant among auks.

Crowning the summit of the island are the ruins of a stone hut, years ago the winter quarters of a sealing-party, placed here to await the coming of the seals on the drifting ice of early spring. The experiment resulted fatally, for all save the cook were drowned while hunting, and he, the sole survivor, was almost insane when rescued.

Not far from here, an old chest, peeping from beneath a pile of stone, marks the grave of another sealer, a young man from Green Bay, who, carried out into the fog by drifting ice, perished miserably near this forlorn spot.

Near by are the almost obliterated walls of two small structures, overgrown with weeds, which in default of any tradition may be surmised to be the dwellings of the old-time destroyers of the auk.

The stones of which these huts were built, as well as those forming the inclosures in which the auks were confined to await their slaughter, were quarried by Nature from the granite rock of the island. Time and frost split this into blocks of varying size and thickness, and, just where the great auks were most abundant, just there the slabs of stone lay thickest, as if Nature wished to aid man in his work of destruction.

There are no bowlders of foreign origin on this part of the island, nor did we see any along the sloping northwestern shore, although Prof. Milne found some there at the time of his visit in 1874. Many of the inclosures just alluded to ("compounds" they were termed) have disappeared, but others are still distinctly outlined, although most of the stone slabs composing them now lie prostrate. The two best-preserved pens, located some little distance from the southwestern lauding, are about twelve feet square, and not one block of stone is missing.

Close by these compounds we upturned the sod over a circle ten feet in diameter, beneath which the soil was composed of