1870 ESKIMO ENCAMPMENT. 155 



holding down the tents and several interesting relics 

 were met with. 



Since the formation of the encampment, part of the 

 bank had been worn or washed away, and with it 

 half the stones of one house had been carried off leaving 

 the remaining segment at the edge of the bank. 



Among the debris of limestone rock at the foot of 

 the hills we obtained numerous fossils, one of them 

 being a trilobite. A pair of falcons flying around had 

 evidently nested in the same cliffs where we noticed 

 them in the previous year. 



Although the large floe which prevented our 

 advancing westward remained immovable close to 

 the shore, I observed that the ice in the offing was 

 opening, and that beyond the cape there was fairly 

 navigable water reaching almost to Cape Louis 

 Napoleon. Accordingly I signalled to the ships to 

 advance and hurried back to the boat. Starting at 6 

 a.m., during the ebb-tide, the ice was observed to be 

 drifting to the northward, probably influenced by the 

 light southerly wind which was blowing at the time. 



By passing on the outside of the large floe we 

 succeeded in reaching a group of icebergs lying 

 aground about two miles east of Cape Napoleon — j:>ro- 

 bably the same that protected us on the 1 9th of August 

 the previous year. 



It was now sufficiently dark at midnight to render 

 it necessary to burn candles on the lower-deck. 



In consequence of the rise in temperature to 35° 

 during the previous four days all the streams in the 

 ravines were running again. In the afternoon a fog set 

 in and prevented our seeing what the ice was doing 



