Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/187

 the land can be seen from Weevang (the north shore of Baffin Land); and many natives have lived there, and have been seen by whalers, and by the expeditions sent in search of Sir John Franklin.

The report on the state of the ice in Jones Sound is very important for the identification of this place. As there is a narrow neck of land connecting Cornwallis and Bathurst Islands, I was rather inclined to judge this to be the place where my Eskimo had been. However, her memory would barely have failed her in recollecting the passage over the ice of Wellington Channel; and besides, the description the land, Oomingmam nuna, does not agree with Bathurst Island. In Jones Sound, Belcher found open water in May, 1853, at a time of the year when the ice in narrow channels can only be wasted by strong currents. We know nothing about the part of the sound north-east of Kent Island, north of which Belcher discovered many small islands. The open water, the narrow passage between North Kent and North Devon, and the many small islands to the north, closely resemble the description given me by the Eskimo woman. It would be very interesting to find that Jones Sound is closed there by a narrow neck of land. The heavy ice Inglefield met with in Jones Sound, in 1852, may have drifted into the sound as easily from Smith Sound as from a sea west of Ellesmere Land.

The last reason leading me to think that Ellesmere Land and Oomingmam nuna are the same, is that the same name is applied to Ellesmere Land by the Smith-Sound natives. In Etah, Bessels met a man who came from Cape Searle, on Davis Strait. He had lived for some time among the Ellesmere-Land natives, and referred to that country as Oomingmam nuna. In the whole of Baffin Land the natives know Oomingmam nuna, and always point it out as beyond Tudnunirn (Ponds Bay) and Tudjan. For these reasons there can scarcely be any doubt that the description I obtained really refers to Jones Sound and the west shore of Ellesmere Land.

The Eskimo of Etah assert that Hayes Sound is a passage leading into the western ocean, and dividing the land west of the Smith-Sound seas into two islands,—Ellesmere Land and Grinnell Land; and there is no reason to doubt their statements. The English expedition under Nares supposed the sound not to be open to tidal currents; Greely’s explorations, however, extend it much farther to the west, and arc rather in favor of the theory that the sound really forms a passage. The accompanying map presents my views of the probable configuration of the land in this region.

by Mr. Teobert Maler upon the state of Chiapas (Mexico), published in the July and August numbers, 1884, of the Revue d’ethnographie, contains some items of more