32 MY ARCTIC JOURNAL 



the Other shore, and toward evening they returned with the 

 report that the place was perfectly desolate and not at all 

 suitable for a camp. After supper wc returned to the southeast 

 shore to see if we could improve on the location selected in the 

 morning, but after tramping for miles came back to the old site. 

 While it cannot in truth be said that the spot is a specially 

 attractive one, it would be equally untrue to describe it as 

 being entirely devoid of charm or attraction. Flowers bloom 

 in abundance on all sides, and their varied colors, — white, 

 pink, and yellow, — scattered through a somewhat somber 

 base of green, picture a carpet of almost surpassing beauty. 

 Rugged cliffs of sandstone, some sixteen hundred to eighteen 

 hundred feet high, in which the volcanic forces have built up 

 long black walls of basalt, rise steeply behind us, and over 

 their tops the eternal ice-cap is plainly visible. Only a few 

 paces from the base of the knoll are the silent and still par- 

 tially ice-covered waters of the bay, which extends five miles 

 or more over to the opposite shore, and perhaps three times 

 that distance eastward to its termination. A number of 

 lazy icebergs still stand guard between us and the open 

 waters of the western horizon, where the gray and ice- 

 flecked bluffs of Northumberland and Hakluyt Islands dis- 

 appear from sight. 



This morning the members of our party went ashore with 

 pickaxes and shovels, and they are now digging the founda- 

 tions of our "cottage by the sea." They are also putting up 

 a tent for our disabled commander, whence he can super- 



