NOTES FROM AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. 379 
Mr. Clements Markham, who had accompanied the Expedition 
thus far on board the ‘Alert.’ It was no ordinary leave-taking, for 
to Mr. Markham’s earnest advocacy of a renewal of Arctic enter- 
prise the despatch of the Expedition was in a great measure due. 
An Aretic traveller himself, having graduated in the school of the 
Franklin Search Expeditions twenty-five years before, he added 
practical experience to his vast stores of knowledge, which were 
at all times available for the information and benefit of his 
companions. Our parting with one who sympathised so warmly 
in all our hopes and aspirations was severing the last link in the 
chain that connected us with home. 
On July 17th we passed down the Waigatt Strait, through 
streams of bergs discharged from the Torsukatak ice-fiord. The 
scenery of the Waigatt is very fine; on the Nugsuak side the trap- 
cliffs rise to a height of from 8000 to 4000 feet. The same 
formation forms the cvast-line as far as Proven, in lat. 72° 22’ N., 
which we reached on the night of the 19th. This settlement is 
built on a small island composed of gneiss, its highest point 
reaching an elevation of about 600 feet. The surface of the 
island is strewed over with erratic blocks, chiefly metamorphic ; 
some of them are of enormous size, and are poised on very 
insecure foundations, many of them giving the idea that they 
would topple over with but little encouragement. On the 
extreme summit of the island are lying several masses of basalt, 
with the edges of the columns little worn by attrition; in all 
probability these blocks were drifted to their present position 
by the agency of floating ice, in which case this portion of the 
Greenlandic coast must have experienced great elevation since the 
deposition of the Miocene traps and basalts: At an elevation of 
over 1000 feet on Arveprins Island, Mr. Markham and I observed 
the same deposition of basaltic erratics on its ice-worn slopes. 
We noticed a considerable falling off in the abundance of the 
flora at Proven in comparison with the Island of Disco;  bird-life 
was very scant—a single Raven, many family parties of Snow 
Buntings, a few Wheatears with their newly-fledged young, and 
a Glaucous Gull, made up the list. The sea, however, was more 
prolific in life: a small dredge, let down in thirteen and a half 
fathoms, brought up many Mollusca, Star-fishes, and Crustaceans. 
By dipping buckets, we captured hundreds of Clio borealis 
and Limacina arctica; when the two species were placed in the 
