84 THE FUR COUNTRY. Cape Bathurst, although, as Hobson had already renjarked to Mrs Barnett, there was not a rock, a stone, not even a flint or a pebble, to be seen. The shore was strewn with innumerable quantities of bivalve shells broken by the surf, and with seaweed or zoophytes, mostly sea-urchins and asteriadse ; but the soil consisted entirely of earth and sand, without a morsel of silica or broken granite ; and the cape itself was but an accumulation of soft earth, the particles of which were scarcely held together by the vegetation with which it was clothed. In the afternoon of the same day, July 6th, Hobson and Mac-Nab the carpenter went to choose the site of the principal house on the plateau at the foot of Cape Bathurst. From this point the view embraced the lagoon and the western districts to a distance of ten or twelve miles. On the right, about four miles off, towered icebergs of a considerable height, partly draped in mist ; whilst on the left stretched apparently boundless plains, vast steppes which it would be impossible to distinguish from the frozen surface of the lagoon or from the sea itself in the winter. The spot chosen, Hobson and Mac-Nab set out the outer walls of the house with the line. This outline formed a rectangle measur- ing sixty feet on the larger side, and thirty on the smaller. The fa9ade of the house would therefore have a length of sixty feet : it was to have a door and three windows on the side of the promontory, where the inner court was to be situated, and four windows on the side of the lagoon. The door was to open at the left corner, instead of in the middle, of the back of the house, for the sake of warmth. This arrangement would impede the entrance of the outer air to the further rooms, and add considerably to the comfort of the inmates of the fort. According to the simple plan agreed upon by the Lieutenant and his master- carpenter, there were to be four compartments in the house : the first to be an antechamber with a double door to keep out the wind ; the second to serve as a kitchen, that the cooking, which would generate damp, might be all done quite away from the living-rooms ; the third, a large hall, where the daily meals were to be served in common ; and the fourth, to be divided into several cabins, like the state-rooms on board ship. The soldiers were to occupy the dining-hall provisionally, and a kind of camp-bed was arranged for them at the end of the room. The Lieutenant, Mrs Barnett, Thomas Black, Madge, Mrs Joliflfe, Mrs
