LAND-MARKS. 333 



objects. From the level character of the land 

 to the eastward, they could be seen at a great 

 distance, and might thus serve as marks for any 

 wanderers whom chance or design should bring 

 to this far country. 



Indeed, that they had already been made use 

 of for this purpose seemed to be indicated by 

 numbers of piled stones, precisely similar in 

 figure to those which I remembered to have 

 seen along the banks of the Copper Mine River, 

 as well as by some trenched divisions of ground, 

 containing the moss-covered stones of circular 

 encampments, evidently the work of the Esqui- 

 maux, on whose frontiers we had arrived. I 

 confess that these unequivocal traces of the 

 " shivering tenants" of the arctic zone did not 

 a little surprise me ; since on former occasions 

 we had not found them at a distance from the 

 coast. Was it possible, I asked myself, that we 

 were nearer the sea than I had imagined ? It was 

 not likely that they had come from Bathurst's 

 Inlet, though not more than one hundred and 

 seventeen miles off, for that lay to the north-west, 

 and they would fall on the river much nearer, 

 namely, at the western extremity of Lake 

 Beechey. On the other hand, if they came 

 from the eastward, were they from Chesterfield 

 Inlet, the western or nearest termination of 

 which, according to Arrowsmith's map, was not 

 less than one hundred and fifty-eight miles ? 



