110 H. P. STEENSBY. 
breaks up every summer and again freezes over every autumn. King 
Willam Land and the islands in the straits hinder the great masses of ice 
which come drifting from the north-west from entering Netchillik Sea. 
Mc. CLINTOCK was of opinion that if Franklin, instead of taking his ships 
into the pack-ice west of King William Land, had gone east of the latter 
“he would probably have taken them safely through to Bering Strait.” 
And the Gjea Expedition has shown that this route can be navigable, at 
any rate as regards a smaller ship. i 
During April—May, 1859, Mc. Crintock travelled in a sledge across 
this lake throughout its entire length from Matty Island in Ross Strait to 
67!/2° N. lat., and writes regarding the condition of the ice (I, р. 270): “Since 
our first landing upon King William's Island we have not. met with any 
heavy ice; all along its eastern and southern shore, together with the estuary 
of this great river, is one vast unbroken sheet formed in the early part of 
last winter where no ice previously existed.” 
Mc. CLintock himself did not see the Netchillik Sea free from ice, but 
he learnt from the natives that this is, as a rule, the case every summer, 
which agrees with Sımpson’s experiences from August 1839, and with Back’s 
from the end of July 1833, as also with that of the Gjoa Expedition from 
1903—1905. 
The vegetation, which is necessarily Arctic in character, is not of much 
interest in this connection. With the exception of some berries it does not 
provide food, and only an inconsiderable quantity of wood for the use of 
the Eskimo. Drift-wood occurs in small quantities. Among the few cases 
of the occurrence of drift-wood reported by the various expeditions may be 
mentioned the piece, 2.7 metres in length, which Back, according to KING, 
found on the east coast of the Adelaide Peninsula. The only regular supply 
of wood which can possibly be had must be conveyed along Back River, 
which undoubtedly tears off the vegetation along its banks and carries it 
to its mouth. This assumption agrees with what Boas ascertained from 
Netchillik, that there the inhabitants got their wood from the Eskimo who 
lived towards the south-west. 
That the Netchillik Sea is rich in Ringed Seals may be known even 
from the name, and this species of seal is also the only one which occurs 
in great abundance. Neither walruses nor walrus hunting is mentioned west 
of the Melville Peninsula, wherefore it may safely be concluded that neither 
is this animal to be met with west of Boothia. Whales and whale hunting 
are as little mentioned, and it is probabie that these animals, on their 
wanderings, never, or extremely rarely, reach these out-of-the-way waters. 
From Bellot Strait there are records of herds of White Whales, but even 
if Franklin Strait now and then has open waters, which according to Mc. 
CLINTOCK is not the case every summer, yet in these particular years they 
scarcely reached so far southwards. 
The land fauna is characterized both by the presence of musk ox and 
reindeer, of which especially the latter are important to the inhabitants on 
