December, i8«5.i F<md With Difficulty Obtained from the Deposits. 209 



Ar-mou then satisfied them that it was only a mock-sun they had 

 beheld." 



Visits to the deposits like those made during the autumn were re- 

 peated through the winter as often as the necessities for food required. 

 On the 2d of December, Hall started up North Pole River with two dogs 

 for a team and a deer-skin for a sledge. He found lialf a saddle eaten 

 by foxes, or perhaps by some smaller animal, which, from tlie Iinuiits' 

 description, he thought must be the weasel. This deposit he had made 

 on ground six feet above the river-level ; but a six-day gale and storm 

 had formed anchor-ice on the boulders in the river's bed, bringing the 

 waters up from their passage under the ice to overflow it a long way 

 down the estuary before reaching the sea. The deposits made on the 

 banks were therefore almost entirely lost. When he had attempted, 

 a few days before, to open this cache by the use of sharp stones as 

 wedges and of boulders for his hammers, he had succeeded only in mak- 

 ing a few crevices, but through these the depredations had now been 

 made. On this visit he fastened his dogs by their draught-lines to the 

 rocks; but they no sooner saw the chips of the frozen meat flying right 

 and left from the blows of a dull ax, than they began a yelping, bark- 

 ing, and springing to be loosened, which continued through the two 

 hours he was at work. " With much patience exercised in those 

 hours of profuse perspiration," he secured the larger part of the meat, 

 and then unfastened his dogs to revel on the scattered morsels and 

 gnaw at the mass mixed with the ice and stones. The larger frag- 

 ments and chips, placed on the deer-skin sledge out of their reach, 

 were drawn back to the igloo. 



On a second journey for a like object, made in the month follow- 

 ing, he set out with Nu-ker-zhoo from Now-yam before daylight, the 



S. Ex. 27 14 



