102 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



mation and appearance as the one which I have 

 already described — trap rocks, imperfect columns, 

 thousands of rounded boulders of the same, and a 

 few occasional small ones of granite and limestone ; 

 one of the latter containing fossil pectens and other 

 shells. 



No ice to speak of has been driven to this direc- 

 tion by the gale ; and as plenty of floating ice is in- 

 dispensable for the success of our operations against 

 both the seal and the walrus, we got the anchor up 

 in the afternoon, and proceeded to beat to the N.E. 

 again in hopes of meeting it, but wind and current 

 being against us, our progress was very slow. 



These islands are most absurdly misnamed "The 

 Thousand, 1 ' for there are not, in reality, nearly one 

 hundred of them ; they are also very incorrectly 

 laid down in the charts as being all about equally 

 distant from one another, whereas there are never 

 more than five or six in one group, and each group 

 is generally many miles distant from another. 



Hope Island is placed in the charts as lying due 

 south from the middle of the Thousand Islands, 

 but its actual position is about forty-five miles due 

 east from Black Point, or nearly one hundred miles 

 farther to the N.E. than the charts make it. This 

 latter grave error is notorious among the sealers, 

 and I satisfied myself, by actual observation, that 

 the position of the island is as I have stated it. 



Black Point and Whalefish Point are the two 

 promontories terminating the chains of mountains 



