172 GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



to making a collection of shells, fossils, gravels, 

 and other geological specimens ; a duty which 

 I had devolved upon him when we parted, 

 and for the due performance of which I had 

 given him copious written as well as oral 

 instructions. 



I appropriated the ten fore- quarters of veni- 

 son my crew had been kind enough to leave 

 us, likewise all the eider-ducks except twenty ; 

 and instructing Mr. Wood to go up Stour 

 Eiord as far as the valleys where we had found 

 reindeer the previous season, to kill as many 

 as they could, and then meet us at Hvalfiske 

 Point on or before the 21st, we parted company, 

 and we bore up once more for the walrus 

 districts to the north-east. 



Two of the " hands " in the sloop, one of 

 whom is the redoubted Solomon (harpooner, 

 disrated for incapacity, and since reinstated), 

 have been ailing a good deal for the last week 

 or ten days, and I only to-day discovered that 

 Isaac the skyppar, who has charge of the 

 medicaments, had, in his ignorance of the 

 Pharmacopoeia, been putting the two unfor- 

 tunate men through a course of cJdo7'ide of 

 lime ! A jar of this had been sent from the 

 chemists along with the medicines, for the 



