TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 941 
the nature of the climate ; for the vapour that 
rises from them sometimes appears at a little dis. 
tance, as thick as if it rose from the surface of 
hot water. During our excursions, lately, we ob- 
served another curious circumstance, peculiar, I 
imagine, to this climate, at least to the extent 
that we saw it. What I allude to is, that in se- 
veral places along the sides of the hills, we ob- 
served where pieces of ground, from fifty to sixty 
yards in length, and between thirty and forty in 
breadth, had started from their place, and slid 
down these hills to the distance of sixty or seventy 
yards, forming, where they had stopped, large 
heaps of earth, and in other places spreading over 
the face of these hills. ‘The depth of the chasms 
that were left by the removal of these pieces of 
ground was, in general, about two feet; the 
surface of the ground in them was firmly frozen, 
whilst the proand that slid away was so soft, 
that a person would sink into it. 
How far these casual circumstances may operate 
in changing the face of this country, I do not pre- 
tend to say, but there is one thing certain, that it 
has undergone a very considerable change, and 
that too at no very distant period of time; for we 
found the jaw-bones of a whale on a plain, at the 
distance of a mile, at least, from the sea, and a 
crown-bone of a whale was picked up about the 
same distance from the shore, near Winter Har- 
bour. And, in both these cases, the bones were, 
I think, too heavy for wolves or bears to drag them 
that distance inland; and, if that be admitted, I 
do not see any other way in which the event can 
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