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J.he region of the Pobr Eskimos, in its more restricted 

 sense, is the west side of the broad peninsula, sometimes 

 called Hayes Peninsula, which from ISorth-West Greenland ex- 

 tends towards the west between the Kane Basin in the north 

 and Melville Bay in the south. This western coast, which 

 extends over about 3 degrees of latitude from Cape Olsen to 

 Cape York and which is washed by the "north water" of the 

 whalers as also by the 50 km. broad Smith Sound, is a 

 characteristic transverse coast with deep and branching bays. 

 The two main fjords are Wolstenholm Sound and Inglefield 

 Gulf. Numerous glaciers project out from the inland ice, so 

 that the narrow, ice- free foreland is split up into small parts. 



The direction of this coast as a whole is from NW. to 

 SE., whilst the opposite coast of Ellesmere Land has a direc- 

 tion from NE. to SW. Together the two coasts form the 

 funnel-shaped outlet of the long, narrow passage, which con- 

 nects the Polar Sea with Baffins Bay. With regard to the 

 currents the conditions in Smith Sound are quite the same 

 as in Bering Strait or in the northernmost part of the At- 

 lantic between Greenland and Norway; a cold polar current 

 carrying masses of ice goes southwards along the west side of 

 the Sound , whilst a warmer aud ice-free current coming from 

 the south tries to force its way in along the east side. This 

 condition of the currents is directly connected with the revol- 

 ving of the globe, which induces the deflection of the water- 

 masses just as of the air-currents. 



