192 PETERSEN'S INFORMATION. Chap. XII. 



I learn from Petersen that the natives of Smith's Sound 

 are well acquainted with the continuation of its shores con- 

 siderably beyond the farthest point reached by Kane's ex- 

 ploring parties, but unfortunately no one thought of getting 

 them to delineate their local knowledge upon paper. They 

 spoke much of a large island near the west coast called 

 "Umingmak" (musk ox) Island, where there was much 

 open water, abounding with walrus, and where some of their 

 people formerly lived. 1 



Esquimaux exist upon the east coast of Greenland as far 

 north as lat. 75 ; how much farther north is not known. 

 They are separated from the South Greenlanders by hundreds 

 of miles of icebound coasts and impassable glaciers. 



Centuries ago a milder climate may and probably did 

 exist, and a corresponding modification of glacier and a sea 

 less ice-encumbered might have rendered the migration of 

 these poor people from the south to their present isolated 

 abodes practicable ; but to me it appears much more easy 

 to suppose that they migrated eastward from the northern 

 outlet of Smith's Sound. 



The very little that we know of the east coast of Green- 

 land, stretching northward from Cape Farewell in lat. 6o° to 

 7 6°, and probably much farther, is derived from Scoresby's 

 1 Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery,' in 

 1822 ; from the voyage of H.M.S. ' Griper,' 2 in 1823, when 

 Captain Clavering, R.N., was accompanied by Captain 

 Sabine, R.A., now General Sabine, the distinguished Pre- 

 sident of the Royal Society ; and from the boat voyages of 

 Captain Graah, of the Royal Danish Navy, in 1828-30. 



To commence with the most northern voyage : Clavering's 

 ship was unable to penetrate farther north than 75 12'; 



1 Petersen conversed with two men who had themselves been up to 

 Umingmak Island. 



2 See new ' Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' July, 1830. 



