334 PROMOTION OF ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC DISCOVERY. 



for that object, and she conld not wait beyond a certain time. But a 

 vessel sent for the relief service alone would wait for opportunities, and 

 make a thorough and efticient search. It therefore becomes necessary 

 to consider whether the sad duty of ascertaining the fate of those gal- 

 lant youths, and their companions, alone remains; or whether there is 

 any hope of their having survived. 



If Bjorling fell in with a party of friendly Eskimos, there is no reason 

 why he and his companions should not have survived through two 

 winters, if animal life were abundant around their encampment. This, 

 therefore, is the question, whether there is a reasonable probability of 

 Eskimos being met with near Clarence Head, Many years ago, when 

 I was serving in the Arctic regions, it was assumed that the western 

 side of Baffin Bay, north of Lancaster Sound, was uninhabited. In 

 1851 Sherard Osborn found vestiges of Eskimos in Jones Sound, and 

 when I landed near Cape Warrender, with Sir Erasmus Oumianney, in 

 the i)revious year, I came upon several stone graves. It was supiwsed 

 that these remains were very ancient, possibly representing- the origi- 

 nal migration of the people now settled in northern Greenland. But 

 in 1853 Sir Edward Ingletield found a party of Eskimos in the very 

 harbor where I had lauded in 1850, proving that, though wanderers 

 had left their vestiges in the remote past, people of the same race still 

 frequented the region in question. Their remains were also found by 

 the exi:)edition of Sir George Xares on the western side of Smith Sound. 

 Captain Buddington, who commanded the Folaris expedition after 

 Hall's death, met with Eskimos at Port Foulke who had certainly 

 waudered round the whole northwestern side of Baffin Bay from Lan- 

 caster Sound. The information collected by Dr. Franz Boas from the 

 Eskimos in Baffin Land is more detailed. They occasionallj^ cross 

 Lancaster Sound from Admiralty Inlet to the neighborhood of Cape 

 Warrender, but not often, because they have no boats or canoes, and 

 the sound is seldom frozen over. On reaching the coast of jSTorth 

 Devon, they go across the land with their sledges, and in four days 

 reach the coast of Jones Sound, at a place where a long narrow jjrom- 

 ontory juts out toward EUesmere Laud called Xedlung. The promon- 

 tory becomes an island at high tide, and there is a channel of open 

 water throughout the winter. In the spring this becomes a large 

 open space clear of ice, frequented by enormous quantities of seals. 

 Farther north, on the coast of EUesmere Land, which abounds in rein- 

 deer and musk oxen, there was another small colony of Eskimos. 

 These facts are certainly encouraging. I>J(irling would not have 

 landed at Clarence Head until the middle of October, which is against 

 his chances; but on the other liand, he would not then be more than 

 10 or V2 miles from the Eskimos, if they were still in EUesmere Land. 



On the whole there is ground for hope; and it is discreditable to 

 abandon the unfortunate explorers to their fate. The two Swedish 

 lads are the stuff of which heroes are made, and every civilized i)eople 



