58 CKUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



inlet comprised thirty-five families, or one hundred and forty- 

 four persons. The only other band on the northern shores 

 of Baffin island lived at Admiralty inlet, and does not exceed 

 forty persons in all. Members of this band annually visit 

 Ponds inlet to trade for the necessary supplies of ammunition, 

 knives and other articles to be obtained from the whalers. At 

 this time over one-half of the population of Ponds inlet were 

 away inland to the southwest after a supply of deerskins for 

 winter clothing;, and would not return before the snow fell. 

 The deer country is free from, snow during the summer, and 

 consists partly of rolling country, with a few high hills, but 

 principally of a plain, cut by many streams and dotted with 

 numerous lakes, tne deer feeding on the grass and shrubs which 

 are plentiful in the interior. 



Bylot island is everywhere high and rough, and supports few 

 deer except in the northeastern interior. The ice-cap, seen 

 everywhere from the coast, does not extend far inland, where 

 much of the land is bare in summer. The natives of Ponds 

 inlet frequently cross to Fox channel and Repulse bay. During 

 the past winter a party returning from the latter place brought 

 letters from the whaling station at Repulse bay. They also 

 occasionally cross to North Somerset, where of late years musk- 

 oxen have been killed. This journey is at rare intervals con- 

 tinued across Lancaster sound to North Devon, where many 

 deer and musk-oxen are found along the western side, while 

 bears and walrus are plentiful among the ice of Wellington 

 channel. In the winter all congregate at Button point, where the 

 early part of the season is spent in houses built half into the 

 ground, the low walls being made of boulders and whalebones 

 cemented together with clay and sods, the roof being a portion 

 of the summer tent. The ordinary snowhouse is used, as in 

 other places, after the snow falls and until the late spring. 

 During the winter food is obtained by killing narwhals and 

 occasional seals and walrus in the open water at the edge of the 



