418 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
year filled with one season’s ice, which had separated from 
the land and was now ready to drift to the eastward into the main 
channel. It was very interesting to note how many of these 
ice-rafts were covered with heaps of gravel, débris, and angular 
fragments of stone which had fallen from the cliffs when the floe-ice 
was in close proximity to the land. Whilst returning through 
this ice to the eastward we landed for a couple of hours on the 
north shore of Ellesmere Land. The coast-line, and to a height of 
seven hundred or eight hundred feet, is a schistose rock thickly 
studded with garnets; but the tops of the range are capped by a 
grey unfossiliferous limestone which weathers yellow. Along the 
shore line are the ruins of many Eskimo settlements ; they appeared 
to be very ancient, and the numerous bones of animals lying 
around were lichen-covered. The skull of a Musk-ox and many 
of its bones showed that this animal had been utilized for food by 
the former inhabitants of the place. We found there a specimen 
of a gay-coloured butterfly, Colias Hecla, flying about, and we 
noted afterwards the same species ranged three degrees farther 
north. A single Ptarmigan, Lagopus rupestris, was secured 
whilst our party was on shore. We made our way out of Hayes 
Sound under steam and sail, a fresh wind blowing from the 
south-west. Many Black Guillemots and Little Auks were fishing 
in the lanes of water along which we sailed. We passed near 
enough to the southern shore of Bache Island to observe that at 
the water’s edge red syenite or gneiss appears; but above it rises 
a grand mural cliff of limestone, which extends almost unbroken 
along its eastern shore as far as Victoria Head. 
After leaving Hayes Sound and entering Smith Sound once 
more, our troubles with the ice recommenced, and a couple of 
days’ unceasing battles, ramming and charging the floes, varied on 
more than one occasion by the imminent prospect of destruction 
to our ships, brought us close to Cape Victoria, where the ships 
lay for an hour or so in a pool of water. Captain Markham being 
despatched on shore to obtain an observation from an elevation, 
I was allowed to accompany him. It being low-water at the time 
of our visit, we found some difficulty in getting up the ice-foot, 
which at that stage of the tide presented a wall of ice some twelve 
feet above the water. 
(To be continued.) 
