328 Снн. Bendix Thostrup 



the dogs) did not allow me to open the heap sufficiently to be able 

 to find anything in it. 



Depotskæret (lat. 76° 03', long. 19° 51'). Here we found some 

 shelters, 1 trap, 1 cairn and 1 meat-depot house. 



In the mouth of Bessels Fjord lie some small islands. In Fe- 

 bruary 1908 as we were sledging down from the north towards 

 the outermost islet, Depotskæret, my attention was at once caught 

 by a cairn (703; PI. Ill), which had been raised just by the 

 beach, and as I knew that the place had not been visited earlier 

 by Europeans, it struck me that this cairn must be the mark for 

 something, which had been of importance for the Eskimos who 

 formerly lived and hunted here. The cairn could scarceh' have 

 been built by one man, who desired to find the place again for 

 himself, as there was no reason to do so, the position of the islet 

 being so well-marked and the place itself easily found on coming 

 from the north owing to the presence of a conspicuous, large rock 

 standing somewhat isolated further to the east on the islet than 

 the cairn. It was evident, therefore, that the cairn had been built 

 to attract the attention of passers-by. I drove my dogs up the islet 

 and then went up to the cairn to examine it more closely. 



It lay ca. 2 — 3 meters above the sea, about 15 meters from the 

 beach, and consisted of a pointed, triangular stone, which supported 

 by a couple of smaller stones had been placed with the point 

 downwards upon an erratic boulder 1 M. high. 



At a distance of about 15 meters from the cairn I found a 

 stone structure (704), built on the south side of a stone boulder ca. 

 1*50 M. high and long (PI. III). The floorplace was almost oval, 

 but the large boulder cut off a part of the rounding. The stone 

 wall surrounding the space was so compactly built and solid, that 

 one could not see through it. To show its strength, I may mention 

 that some of the stones at the top were so heavy, that I could not 

 lift them and was obliged to let them slide down in order to make 

 a hole to get into it. The space was half full of snow and I found 

 no doorway, either from the inside or outside, but such may never- 

 theless have been there. 



I imagine that this structure has been a depot, to which the 

 hunters have brought their booty when they could not carry it 

 away with them — and where a hunter could at any time obtain 

 provisions Ч This meat-depot has had an absolutely permanent 

 character and the place has possibly been a meeting-point for the 



. ^ Common meat-depot, see Steknsby: p. 305; Kn'ud Rasmussen 1 : p. 43 and3: p. 44. 



