182 THE NATURAL HISTOEY REVIEW. 



" makes a well fed bear nearly uneatable. The flesh of a famished 

 /' beast, although less nutritious as a fuel diet,* is rather sweet and 

 " tender than otherwise." 



Like other Arctic travellers, Capt. Hall frequently mentions the 

 quantity of bones which were to be seen lying about upon the 

 surface of the ground. Those who are surprised by the absence 

 of human remains in the drift-gravels, might turn with advantage to 

 those passages (for instance, Yol. ii. pp. 83, 90, and 154) in which he 

 mentions numerous bones of reindeer, walrus, seals, and other ani- 

 mals, without any belonging to man. In our own country, and still 

 more in hotter regions, any bones which are occasionally left upon 

 the surface of the ground soon perish. A hundred different kinds 

 of animals, and the action of our comparatively rapid vegetation, 

 combine to ensure their destruction ; but in the frozen regions 

 of the North, these influences are absent, or at least, highly in- 

 efficient. It has often been a matter of surprise that our bone- 

 caves appear to belong almost exclusively to the glacial epoch. On 

 the other hand, it has been also difficult to understand how it should 

 come to pass that, in those caves which appear to have received 

 their stores of bones from the action of floods, in opposition to those 

 which were evidently the dens of wild beasts, the bones bear so 

 large a proportion to the inorganic materials. May we not find, in 

 the accounts given by Arctic travellers, an explanation, perhaps, of 

 these two phenomena ? Bones in the far north, are, as we have 

 seen, far more frequent than in our temperate clime. They lie, not 

 upon the soil, but in many cases, at least, upon ice. The caves 

 would be filled up, not by bones with sand, and gravel or loam, 

 but by bones and ice. The ice, gradually melting away, would 

 continually make room for fresh accumulations of bones. In his 

 description of a glacier in North Greenland, Dr. Kane expresses 

 himself as follows : — " AVithin the area of a few acres f we found 

 " seven skeletons, and numerous skulls : these all occupied the snow 

 " streams, or gullies, that led to a gorge opening on to the ice belt, 

 " and might thus be gathered in time to one spot, by the simple 

 " action of the watershed." 



The abundance of life in the far north, is indeed surprising. No 

 better evidence of this can be given than, the fact that the northern 

 Esquimaux are entirely carnivorous ; the only vegetable food they 



♦Arctic Explorations, vol. I., p. 360. f Kane, 1. c. p. 95. 



