28 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
village of Nuwitk is situated. At various points along the beach are 
heaps of gravel, sometimes 5 or 6 feet in height, which are raised by the 
ice. Masses of old ice, bearing large quantities of gravel, are pushed 
up on the beach during severe storms and melt rapidly in the summer, 
depositing their load of gravel and pebbles in a heap. These masses 
are often pushed up out of reach of the waves, so that the heaps of 
gravel are left thenceforth undisturbed. 
Between Imernyy and Elson Bay (Ta/sytk) is a series of large shal- 
low lagoons, nearly circular and close to the beach, which rises in a regu- 
lar sea-wall. All have low steep banks on the land side, bordered with 
a narrow beach. The first of these, kpilin (that which has high 
banks”), breaks out in the spring through a narrow channel in the beach 
in the manner already described, and is salt or brackish. The next is 
fresh and connected with Ikpilin by a small stream running along be- 
hind the beach. It is called Si/n-nyt, and receives a rivulet from a 
small fresh-water lake 3 or 4miles inland. The third, Imé/kpun (“great 
water”), is also fresh, and has neither tributary nor outlet. The fourth, 
Imékpti/niglu, is brackish, and empties into Elson Bay by a small stream. 
Between this stream and the beach is a little fresh-water pond close to 
the bend of Elson Bay, which is called Kikytkta/ktoro, from one or two 
little islands (kikyt/kty) near one end of it. 
Back from the shore the land is but slightly elevated, and is marshy 
and interspersed with many small lakes and ponds, sometimes con- 
nected by inconsiderable streams. This marsh passes gradually into 
a somewhat higher and drier rolling plain, stretching back inland from 
the cliffs and growing gradually higher to the south. Dr. Simpson, on 
the authority of the Point Barrow natives, describes the country as 
“uniformly low, and full of small lakes or pools of fresh water to a dis- 
tance of about 50 miles from the north shore, where the surface becomes 
undulating and hilly, and, farther south, mountainous.”! This deserip- 
tion has been substantially verified by Lieut. Ray’s explorations. South 
of the usual deer-hunting ground of the natives he found the land decid- 
edly broken and hilly, and rising gradually to a considerable range of 
mountains, running approximately east and west, which could be seen 
from the farthest point he reached.’ 
The natives also speak of high rocky land “a long way off to the 
east,” which some of them have visited for the purpose of hunting the 
mountain sheep. The low rolling plain in the immediate vicinity of 
Point Barrow, which is all of the country that could be visited by our 
party when the land was clear of snow, presents the general appear- 
ance of a country overspread with glacial drift. The landscape is 
strikingly like the rolling drift hills of Cape Cod, and this resemblance 
is increased by the absence of trees and the occurrence of ponds in all 
the depressions. There are no rocks in situ visible in this region, and 
1 Aretic papers, p. 233. 
2 Report U.S. International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, p. 28. 
