200 APPENDIX. No. II. 



that locality two skulls were found by members of our Ex- 

 pedition. The destruction of these animals would, I think, 

 rapidly follow on the appearance of the Eskimo at Port 

 Foulke ; for I imagine few animals are less fitted to elude 

 the wiles of the hunter. There can be no question that the 

 musk-oxen found by the Germans on the east coast of Green- 

 land are descendants of those that crossed Kobeson Channel, 

 rounded the north of the Greenland continent, and extended 

 their range southward until they met with some physical 

 obstruction that barred their further progress, as has also 

 been ths case on the western shore of Greenland. Dr. Robert 

 Brown, in his ' Essay on the Physical Structure of Greenland,' 

 published by the Geographical Society for the use of the 

 recent Arctic Expedition, thus refers to this range of the 

 musk-ox, lemming and ermine : ' These illustrations, though 

 seemingly trivial in themselves, are yet of extreme zoo- 

 geographical interest as tending to show that the Greenland 

 land must end not far north of latitude 82 or 83.' In the 

 month of August, 1875, we met with abundant traces of the 

 musk-ox in the valley of the Twin Glacier, leading inland 

 from the shores of Buchanan Strait. I noticed where these 

 animals had been sheltering themselves under the lee of big 

 boulders, as sheep do on bleak hill-sides, and that the same 

 spots were frequently occupied was shown by the holes tramped 

 out by the animals, and the large quantities of their long 

 soft wool which was scattered around. Musk-oxen were 

 obtained in considerable numbers near to the winter-quarters 

 of the ' Discovery,' over forty being shot ; but in the extreme 

 north of Grinnell Land, nearer to the winter-quarters of the 

 6 Alert,' they were much scarcer, only six having been obtained 

 by the crew of that vessel, whilst at Thank God Harbour, 

 where the ' Polaris ' Expedition obtained over a score, only 

 one was seen and shot. The range of the musk-ox in Grinnell 

 Land is confined to the coast-line and the valleys debouching 

 thereon. It is an animal by no means fitted to travel through 

 the deep soft snow which blocks up the heads of all these 

 valleys. On one occasion, in Westward Ho ! Valley, in the 



