Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/440

416 chiefly yellow sandstones; many of these blocks lay at an altitude of 2000 feet.

Despite the unattractive appearance of Payer Harbour, traces of Eskimo were found on its shores, in the shape of seven circles of stones that had been employed in fasteniug down the edges of the skin-tents which are used by that people as summer abodes. In their vicinity we picked up a few lichen-covered bones of animals, including a tooth of Rangifer tarandus, bones of a seal, and the jaw of a fox. At another spot we discovered the greater part of a sledge, the runners of which had been composed of wood and bone, and the cross-pieces of Narwhals' tusks, but so ancient that the exposed surfaces were exfoliated, and so brittle that they barely withstood transport to the ship. A harpoon tipped with a piece of ordinary hoop-iron was found at another camping spot, but the freshness of the traces showed that they belonged to a comparatively recent dale. At the time we were somewhat puzzled to account for the presence of iron in the spear-head, which pointed to some intercourse with Europeans; but since reading the officia' account of the 'Polaris' Expedition,* it is quite clear that com- munication is kept up between the natives on both sides of the straits, and no doubt iron from Port Foulke has thus found its way to the inhabitants of Ellesmere land. Nothing certain is known about these people inhabiting Ellesmere Land and North Lincoln, and they still remain an interesting subject for the researches of Arctic explorers in the future.f

On Brevoort Island there was a breeding-place of Larus glaucus, which we visited. The young birds were in much the same state of plumage as those we found on the Cary Islands; they were nesting on ledges not more than twenty feet above the water and quite accessible. During the disturbance made by our intrusion on the breeding-haunt of the Glaucous Gulls, four Ivory Gulls, very likely nesting in the neighbourhood, made their appearance. One of these, a male, was secured ; its iris was dark hair-brown,

'Narrative of the Polaris Expedition,' Washington, 1876, p. 451.

I am indebted to Prof. Dickie, of Aberdeen, for some most interesting sketches of objects of Eskimo handiwork which were discovered by Dr. Philpotts in 1865, when excavating in an old "igloo" on Banks Island, near Cape Hosburgh. They consist of rude models of Eskimo women, Eider Ducks, and other objects carved in ivory, and a stone harpoon -head drilled to receive fastenings. Cape Hosburgh is situated near to the south entrance of Jones Sound. An examination of that channel would, I have no doubt, yield valuable results.