192 Whiter Quarters Made at llae's Fort Hope. [Sopimibcr, ises. 



dience to a like superstitions idea, three days must elapse after the 

 capture of the whale before any work could be done. On the day 

 following, the carcass was cut up and cached amid scenes of feasting. 

 Fifteen hundred pounds of the bone, designed by Hall for the benefit 

 of his expedition, wore securely deposited to be available on the return 

 of the whalers to the ba}' in the following fall. 



The amount of game secured during the month was very small. 

 The Innuits thought that the deer had been frightened off by the 

 smell of the trying out (boiling the oil from) the blubber on the 

 whalers before they sailed. 



A much greater amount of rain had fallen than Hall had expe- 

 nenced at any like period during his first expedition. The natives 

 said that it was very unusual, accounting for it by the fact that during 

 the winter there had been little snow, and but few fogs in the spring, 

 and that these heavy and continuous showers were now making up the 

 deficiency in moisture. 



The general movement of the ice under the influence of the tides, 

 winds, and currents, was from Frozen Strait and Hurd's Channel up 

 Repulse Bay, and thence south and out through the Welcome. At 

 times the bay itself was entirely filled with ice ; sometimes the straits 

 were blocked ; occasionally both the bay and its entrances were free. 



On the 4tli of September, Hall made his twenty-sixth encamp- 

 ment, on tlic })anks of North Pole River, near the Fort Hope of Dr. 

 Rae. This was to be his Avinter quarters, in which he would prepare 

 for liis sledge journey next season to the west. From this point, also, 

 he w(.uld make a survey of the bay, his observations of the coast line 

 already niad«' having satisfied him that an improvement of the charts 



