THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 367 



observations, especially at noon, we frequently failed to do so 

 through oversleeping. This emphasized the value of the alarm clock, 

 an item of equipment that I have neglected to mention. There are 

 few things we find more useful. We commonly camp at six or 

 seven in the morning and take a time sight for longitude before 

 going to sleep. We then set the alarm to ring at about 11:30, 

 which gives ample time to dress, prepare the mercury artificial 

 horizon, and get everything ready for the meridian transit. But 

 now we had left our clock at Mercy Bay and unless we actually sat 

 up to wait for the noon altitude we usually overslept and missed it. 



The Eskimo camps we saw on the journey were of the usual type, 

 some of the tent rings of stone and others of sod, and the bones scat- 

 tered about of cattle, geese and caribou, the last named being rare. 

 Evidently cattle and moulting geese had been the main sources of 

 food. Stone caches in which meat had been protected from wolves 

 were more numerous than the campsites and in everything there 

 was evidence of tremendous slaughter of ovibos. Sometimes we 

 came to places where fifteen or twenty skeletons lay within the 

 space of one or two hundred square yards with only such bones 

 missing as wolves might be expected to devour or carry off. This 

 showed that entire herds had been slaughtered without any appre- 

 ciable percentage of the meat being used. The character of the 

 wood shavings indicated that parts from the interior fittings of the 

 Investigator had been carried all over the island before being made 

 into implements. We saw no campsites that did not have some evi- 

 dence that the campers had been at Mercy Bay. It is, however, 

 possible that some campsites may have been used several times and 

 that it was merely the last users who had Mercy Bay products 

 with them. 



This was one of our delightful summer journeys. It was late 

 enough in the season for most of the mosquitoes to be gone and it 

 was only one or two evenings that they troubled us. We were too 

 far east in Banks Island for the thick fogs that lie on the west coast 

 whenever the wind blows off the western sea, although the clouds 

 did come over and give us two or three rainy days. When the wind 

 was from the east the temperature rose to about 80° in the shade 

 some days. The caribou were fat and numerous, and although we 

 continued to carry no more than two or three days' provisions 

 we always found a fat bull before the dog packs were empty. The 

 dogs carried most of the heavy things, the men part of the bedding, 

 and towards the last the guns and field glasses only. Bedding is 

 tolerably safe when the packs are heavily ballasted with meat or 



