The Story of Marble Island. 



115 



used in burying the dead on Marble Island or not ; nor was there 

 any evidence that even graves had been excavated in the ordinary 

 way. The mounds of small stones were at least three feet high, and 

 suggested the idea that the rigours of this northern climate may 

 have forced them to adopt, in a great measure, the Eskimo style of 

 disposing of a dead body. They may have been able to dig or clear 

 out a small trench, of suitable length and breadth, ten or fifteen 

 inches deep, and then, placing the body in it, cover it over with 

 gravel and small stones, raising the mound that still characterized it. ■ 



DEAD MANS ISLAND —MARBLE ISLAND. 



At any rate the burials must have been very rude, and such as to fill 

 the mourners with feelings of the deepest sorrow. 



There were nineteen of these graves, as nearly as I could make 

 out, which, considering the short space of time the island has been 

 used by the whalers, looked like an alarmingly excessive death rate. 

 Between consumption and shipwreck, and the severity of the weather, 

 a good many had been taken off, breathing their last, and leaving 

 their poor bodies upon these cold rocks, where the winds of almost 

 perpetual winter blow in pitiless and withering blasts. 



I looked upon the inscription on the tablet, " Erected to the 

 memory of the larboard boat'e crew," of the Abbie Bradford, " lost 



