542 THE Oji'RMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



undoubtedly belonged to two different kinds of duck, the 

 Anser albifrons and leucopsis. Sea-swallows were in large 

 flocks. 



From the form and position of the land on this spot, 

 we conjectured that there might be some ancient traces 

 of the natives, and possibly some winter huts; these, 

 however, did not turn up ; but we found a few tent-rings 

 and some long four-cornered ruined heaps of stone, which 

 we took to be graves, but found nothing amongst them. 

 On the cliffs of the East Cape, however, something in- 

 teresting was discovered. Amongst the loose stones, Peter 

 Iversen pulled out what he thought to be a piece of drift- 

 wood, but it proved to be a regularly worked long four- 

 cornered plank, with fine holes along the edge. We 

 turned over the stones and found some more planks, also 

 a well-preserved skull and some arm and leg bones. 



How could we account for this strange discovery ? 

 Evidently the body had been purposely buried under the 



stones ; that it should have come there by chance was not 

 probable. We could think of no other solution than 

 that of some religious motive. Upon putting the boards 

 together, we had a box of 9 '4 inches in length, 6 inches 

 in breadth, and about 3' 2 inches high ; the boards were 

 one-fifth of an inch thick ; it had had a partly closed lid, 

 only a space of 1*7 inches broad being left open ; instead of 

 hinges there were small straps, and on the other side a 



