An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 67 
Strait, and when he tried to take his ship west of Banks Land he had 
to leave it on the north-west coast of the island. 
Right through the Archipelago, and following the direetion of the 
wind from north-west to south-west, runs a fairly broad water-way, 
Banks Strait, which has for continuation Me. Clintock Channel, through 
which no ship has ever succeeded in passing, as it is always, winter 
and summer, found blocked with pack-ice, or, as it is often designated 
on English charts, hummocky ice. 
Towards the north-west, Banks Strait is open to the Arctie Ocean. 
Towards the south-east the Me. Clintock Channel behaves almost like 
a blind alley, inasmuch as it is continued only in the narrow waters 
round King William Land. It can be understood, then, how the north- 
west wind presses the masses of drift-ice together in this little water- 
lane, which has shown itself to be the most effective obstacle to the 
navigation of the North-west Passage. Mc. CLINTOCK, who also found 
it unnavigable by ship, ‚thought, however, that it would be possible 
for a ship to pass through Bellot Strait and Franklin Strait and then 
south-east round King William Land, through Ross Strait and Simpson 
Strait, and further west to Coronation Gulf, and AMUNDSEN’S Gjöa 
Expedition realized the thought of navigating the more southern 
North-west Passage. 
Another peculiar feature which has proved to hold good in these 
Arctic regions is that the conditions of ice on the eastern coasts in- 
variably are more unfavourable than on the western coasts. This 
manifests itself sharply on the east coast of Greenland as compared 
with the west coast, where in Smith Sound, the ice-laden current directly 
follows the coast of Ellesmere Land, while the coast opposite is free, 
as is also the case in Bering Strait, where exactly corresponding 
conditions exist. 
The Arctic flora is of such shght determining importance to coloni- 
sation that it is unnecessary to dwell upon it. Hardly anywhere do 
the berry fruits and the few other edible vegetable substances have 
any influence on the site of the settlement. And as it is not able either 
to yield any wood for implements, the occurrence of drift-wood is of 
greater anthropogeographical importance”, even if, in reality, there are 
many places where considerable quantities of berries are gathered 
and eaten. 
All the more attention must be paid to the fauna, and especially 
the aquatic mammals. Of the land mammals the reindeer is most 
important, in that it has the widest distribution, and is hunted by 
the majority of Eskimo tribes, with the exception of those in the very 
south of Greenland and Alaska where it is no longer found, as formerly 
1 As to supply of drift-wood to the Arctic Ocean compare map, Vol. I in 
Р. С. SurHERLAND, Journal of a voyage in Baffin Bay, etc., 1850—51. London, 
1852, Vol. 11. 
5* 
