CHAPTER XXXI 



WE COMPLETE THE MAPPING OF PRINCE PATRICK ISLAND 



BECAUSE we traveled parallel to the land ten or twelve miles 

 offshore, we found a series of small islands or reefs that 

 Mecham had not noticed. When finally we came to the por- 

 tion of the coast which he and McClintock had been unable to ex- 

 plore in 1853, we loaded up our sledges with meat and blubber and 

 proceeded toward shore. The coast turned out to be rather compli- 

 cated and there were several little islands. It took three days to 

 complete the survey between the most southwesterly reached by 

 McClintock, who had been working from the opposite direction. 



When we started traveling on June 13th we were just about 

 finishing, we thought, the unexplored part of the coast. The seal 

 meat brought to land a few days before was now nearly gone. 

 We had expected, any time it was finished, to leave the coast for 

 a trip out to the shore floe, about ten or twelve miles, to get more 

 food and blubber for fuel. But now that the weather was getting 

 rapidly warmer the sun was thawing the roofs off the winter 

 habitations of the seals that dwelt in the bays and shallow shore 

 water, and they were beginning to come out upon the ice to sun 

 themselves. It may be that the seals found in winter farthest from 

 shore are the smallest, and that they get bigger the nearer land 

 you find them. At any rate, I am fairly sure that the seals that 

 come out on the inshore ice in late spring in places like Banks, 

 Prince Patrick or the Ringnes Islands, are far larger than the 

 average. 



I think we had already seen two or three of these basking seals 

 before I shot one the evening of that day. This was the largest 

 "common" seal {phoca hispida) we had killed up to that time on 

 either our 1914 trip or the present one. We weighed it with a 

 spring balance as follows: meat 971/2 pounds, head, flippers, stomach, 

 lungs, etc. (some of these suitable to eat, though we do not class 

 them as "meat" in this estimate) 321/^ pounds, hide with blubber at- 

 tached 85 pounds. We estimated in addition 11/2 gallons of blood, 



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