An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 101 
immense swamp full of lakes and covered with stunted herbs.” The pre- 
valent north-west wind keeps the coast fairly free from the drifting ice- 
masses, and the tidal difference, which according to HALL is 2 metres at 
Southampton Island and still greater further towards the west, causes a 
strong current in the narrow waters, with the result that, with the exception 
of an ice-belt along the land and over the indentations, there is open water 
in the middle of the strait during the whole, or at least the greater part, 
of the winter. In December 1864 Наш, went 12 kilometres from land to 
arrive at the ice edge in Rowe’s Welcome. Floating masses of ice drifted 
from north to south, grinding along the jagged edge of the fixed ice. 
Numerous walruses were seen on both sides along the ice edge; and they 
were eagerly hunted by the Eskimo. On the whole, the entire stretch of 
coast from Nuvuk to Iglulik abounds in walruses. As regards the latter 
region this fact has been pointed out by Parry and Lyon, and it is 
moreover fully borne out by the experiences of the various expeditions and 
by the numerous accounts of the hunting of these animals. It is only east 
of the Melville peninsula that they occur so abundantly; west of the pen- 
insula they do not occur at all, according to Eskimo report; and in accounts 
of travels no reference is made to them from the Gulf of Boothia and Com- 
mittee Bay. Of species of seal are found, in addition, the Bearded Seal 
and Ringed Seal in great abundance. Of whales, White Whales and Narwhals 
are mentioned. The two large representatives of the terrestrial fauna, the 
reindeer and the musk ox, play an unequal röle as regards the Iglulirmiut 
and Eivillirmiut, the limit of the range of the musk ox being at about Rae 
Isthmus. 
Regarding the Iglulirmiut Parry says that only a few of them have 
taken part in the slaying of a musk ox, while all of them have killed large 
numbers of reindeer. In the autumn, when the ground is frozen and passable, 
the latter wander southwards in great quantities, and in May and June 
return again to the Melville peninsula in a famished and lean condition. 
The narrow Rae Isthmus, the bulk of which is further reduced by a trans- 
verse series of freshwater lakes, is the place resorted to by the Eivillik 
Eskimo for the purpose of carrying on reindeer hunting. 
The fact peculiar to the mode of living of the Eivillik Eskimo is that 
they have access to musk-ox hunting, which is purely land-hunting, and 
lastly their ‘‘economic” journeys are determined by the fact of there being 
an uncommonly great abundance of walruses along the east side of the 
Melville peninsula, and in the straits between the continent and Southampton 
Island. 
A determination of the mode of living and of the dwelling places of 
the tribes in the different seasons of the year must, however, have reference 
to the Eivilik group in particular, as this has been visited several times, 
and at all seasons of the year, while our knowledge of the Iglulik group is 
restricted to the observations of PARRY and Lyon, whose ships Fury and 
Hecla were lying in the neighbourhood of Iglulik from the summer of 1822 
