60 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



fresh fish. They returned loaded in an hour, having made but 

 four casts of the net, in which over a thousand splendid fish 

 were taken, varying in weight from three to ten pounds and 

 aggregating at least 5,000 pounds. 



A strong gale from the eastward blew until the evening of 

 the 21st, with thick banks of fog covering the hills and filling 

 the narrows, while the weather about the ships remained fine 

 and clear. The Diana broke adrift during the gale and lost an 

 anchor and thirty fathoms of chain. During our detention 

 landings were made, and some trips were taken inland over the 

 high, terraced plain, which extends far to the south and west- 

 ward. The lowest terrace is two hundred feet above the sea. 

 The surface of the plain is uneven, and deeply cut by the val- 

 leys of several small streams. The higher terraces flank the 

 rocky hills to the eastward, the highest being fully six hundred 

 feet above sea-level. On the plain and in the valleys there is 

 considerable Arctic vegetation, from which a very interesting 

 collection of plants was made by Dr. Borden. 



A number of partly underground houses, similar to those 

 already described, were found at the mouth of a small stream 

 close to the anchorage. From several ancient graves along 

 the banks of the stream a short distance from the houses a good 

 collection of skulls was obtained. 



When the gale abated, we started down the inlet for Erik 

 harbour, accompanied by the other ships ; the narrows once 

 passed, we had to literally feel our way to the harbour through 

 the dense fog, and anchored at its head alongside the whalers 

 Balaena and Albert. 



A landing was made to collect specimens of the granites and 

 their associated rocks, which form the hills surrounding the 

 harbour, and to visit the glacier which fills over two-thirds of 

 its head. The glacier is a mile wide where it empties into the 

 harbour, the ice along the front being about a hundred feet 



