120 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
party that was on shore. The skulls of two carni- 
vorous animals have also been picked up here ; one of “© 
them is evidently that of a wolf, and the ine which 
is considerably smaller *, appears to be the skull of 
some animal of the feline tribe, most probably the 
amorock of the Greenlander, which is supposed to 
be a creature of the lynx species. The descrip- 
tion which John Sackhouse (the Greenlander who ac- 
companied us last year) gave of it, appeared to make 
it an animal of this kind, for, if I am well informed, 
he spoke of it as being very clear-sighted, and said that 
it bounced with great rapidity on its prey. Notwith- 
standing the tide has such influence in driving the ice 
about, we find that its rise and fall is very inconsider- 
able, for, by a staff planted in the tide-mark on the 
beach, it appears to be no more than three feet ; its 
effects on the ice, however, is the same as I have 
already mentioned, that is, it carries it to the east- 
ward during the flood-tide, and the ebb-tide in the 
contrary direction. It has been remarked that the ice 
we have seen of late appears to swim lighter than that 
in Baftin’s Bay. In order, therefore, to determine whe- 
ther there is any real difference in its specific gravity or 
not, I made a cube f from a piece of the hummock, to 
which the ships were fast these two days; and from 
* Tt is much beasties however, in proportion to its size than 
the wolf’s skull; in its shape it resembled very much the skull of 
the wild cat, but was considerably larger. 
+ The sides of this cube measured one foot three inches and a 
half, and when floating in the sea alongside the hummock of ice 
from which it was ade! two inches and three quarters of it re- 
mained above the surface of the water. The temperature of the 
water at the time was 31°: 
