52 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
of grass and various plants grew in considerable 
abundance; creeping, or ground willow, was the 
only ligneous production we met with, the diameter 
of the thickest of them that I saw did not exceed 
that of a person’s finger, and, generally speaking, they 
were not so large. 
The fixed rocks consisted chiefly of basalt and gra- 
nite, and in the valley there was a vast quantity of 
limestone, in loose fragments ; but I do not recollect 
having seen any rocks of it: granite, quartz, sand- 
stone, trap, felspar, and various other minerals, were 
to be met with in considerable abundance in the bed, 
and about the banks of the stream before-mentioned. 
On our way back to the boat I picked up a piece of 
whalebone, two feet ten inches in length, and two 
inches broad: it had forty two holes in it, placed 
nearly in a straight line, and at regular distances 
from one another along one of its edges: these holes 
were perfectly round, and of a size sufficient to ad- 
mit a goose-quill. Besides the holes just mentioned, 
there were also fine oval holes along the middle of it, 
at the distance of eight inches apart. We supposed 
it had been part of an Esquimaux sledge ; and from 
the situation in which it was found, it is probable 
that it had been carried there by some of these people; 
for it was between three and four hundred yards from 
the sea, and about the same distance from the stream 
up which we went ; so that it could not be brought by 
either to the place where it was found. 
On returning from our excursion, we found that 
the tide had risen so much that we could not wade 
across the bar at the mouth of the stream. The tide 
appeared to flow from the northward, or most pro- 
