128 CRUISE of THE NEPTUNE 
above the slopes of the glaciers flowing down the valleys to the 
sea. The western part of the island is formed of limestone, and 
is a flat tableland cut by deep narrow fiords that extend inland 
many miles from the coast, and are continued beyond the salt 
water as the valleys of small rivers. The general elevation of 
the tableland in the eastern part is nearly 2,000 feet, but 
this decreases in the westward, so that on the west side the 
cliffs are below, and in the interior not much above, a thousand 
feet. The eastern part of this limestone plateau is covered, at 
least along the coast, by an ice-cap, and a few small glaciers 
discharge from it directly into the sea. The ice-cap retreats 
from the fore part of the plateau, and finally disappears before 
the western shores of the island is reached. There is lower land 
along the west side of the island, where there is a good growth 
of arctic plants on which large numbers of musk-oxen feed, 
together with some barren-ground caribou and arctic hares. 
The Eskimos from northern parts of baffin island often cross 
lancaster sound to hunt these animals on the Western side of 
'North Devon. Walrus and white bears are also plentiful 
amongst the ice of wellington channel which separates North 
Devon from Cornwallis island on the west. Sverdrup found the 
remains of Eskimo encampments everywhere along the west 
side of Ellesmere, and speculated as to where the people who 
made them came from, and also how the Eskimos reached Green- 
land. The knowledge that the baffin natives cross to North 
Devon, and that some of them have joined the arctic high- 
landers of Smith sound, disposes of these speculations. Their 
road is across Prince Regent inlet from Baffin to North Somer- 
set, thence across Lancaster sound to the western part of North 
Devon. The west side of that island is followed north to the 
narrows of the western part of Jones sound, and a crossing 
then made to the Western side of Ellesmere, where game is 
plentiful. This coast of plenty would be followed northward 
to Bay fiord, where the natural pass across Ellesmere would 
