188 APPENDIX. No. I. 



information derived from one of the natives resident at Etah, 

 the members of the ' Polaris ' Expedition ] — who wintered 

 1872-73, in the vicinity of Port Foulke — ascertained that 

 many Eskimo live in the neighbourhood of Cape Isabella, 

 and along the coast of Ellesmere Land, their informant 

 stating that it was called Uming-mak Island, from the 

 number of musk-oxen that are found on it, and that he had 

 frequently travelled round it himself. Consequently the 

 northern range of the natives of Ellesmere Land is in all 

 probability equal to that of the Etah Eskimo. There can 

 be no doubt that there is casual, if not regular intercourse 

 between the inhabitants of both sides of Smith Sound ; and 

 one route, by which the migration of the Eskimo from North 

 America to Greenland was effected, can be traced. The 

 narratives of Dr. Kane and Dr. Hayes, and more recently the 

 official report of the ' Polaris ' Expedition, contain most in- 

 teresting' accounts of the habits and mode of life of the 

 ' Arctic Highlanders ' ; and it is satisfactory to observe from 

 the latest information that the number of this interesting 

 community has in no way diminished during the last twenty 

 years. 



In 1875 we found at Cape Sabine, Ellesmere Land, the 

 remains of several ancient Eskimo encampments, as well as an 

 old sledge made of walrus bones, with cross-bars of narwhal 

 horn, completely lichen-covered and of such antiquity that the 

 bones were friable, and also fragments of a stone lamp ; but 

 nearer to the shore were traces of a recent visit, consisting 

 of a blackened fire-place, made of three stones placed against 

 a rock, with the hairs of a white bear sticking to the grease- 

 spots, a harpoon with iron tip, and the excreta of the dogs 

 that had fed on the bear's hide. Further north, on the shores 

 of Buchanan Strait, we came upon deserted settlements con- 

 taining the ruins of many igloos ; in one instance the ribs of a 

 large cetacean had been used as the rafters of a hut ; bones of 

 reindeer, musk-ox, bear, seal, and walrus were strewed around, 



1 Narr. ' Polaris/ North Polar Exp. (Washington, 1876), p. 477. 



