TRACES OF ESQUIMAUX.
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
