Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/381



While rounding the head of Gould Bay, I observed that, as at Port Foulke, Van Rensselaer Harbor, and indeed in almost every bay of the Greenland coast which I have visited above Cape York, the land rises with a gentle slope, broken into steppes of greater or less regularity,—a series of terraced beaches, the highest of which I estimated to be from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty feet above the sea. To these terraces I shall have occasion hereafter to refer, and will not now longer detain the reader than merely to observe that they indicate a consecutive elevation of the two coasts. I also found in that Bay the remains of an Esquimau camp. The marks were quite unmistakable in their character although of very ancient date. The discovery was the more gratifying, that it confirmed the native traditions which had been recited to me by Kalutunah. They were a single circle of heavy stones lying upon the shingly terrace. The circle was about twelve feet in diameter, and is such as may be seen in all places where Esquimaux have been in the summer time. The stones answer the purpose of securing the lower margin of their seal-skin tent; and, when they break up camp, the skins are drawn out, leaving the stones in the situation above described.

The journey of the next day was the most satisfactory of any that had been made, yet it had its drawbacks. As we proceeded, we began to experience in even a greater degree than in Smith Sound the immense force of ice-pressure resulting from the southerly set of the current. Every point of land exposed to the northward was buried under ice of the most massive description. Many blocks from thirty to sixty feet thick, and of much greater breadth, were