188 National Geographic Magazine. 
corner of our territory of Alaska, reaching also across the boun- 
dary-line into British America. We passed Demarcation point, 
where our boundary-line reaches the Arctic ocean, early upon the 
morning of the 15th of August, and commenced again our cruis- 
ing in British waters. The character of the shore remained the 
same, the mountains, however, showing little traces of snow, tes- 
tifying in this way both to the extreme mildness of the winter 
and our approach to the valley of the Mackenzie. A few Eskimo 
huts were seen as we came up to the shoal ground developed by 
our lead in the vicinity of the mouth of the Malcolm river. The 
lead was constantly going while we were in these waters, and the 
ship was steered by it as much as by our compass. In fact the 
three L’s (latitude, lead, lookout) are the great necessities for navi- 
gation in these unknown regions, as the three R’s are supposed to 
be in elementary schooling. At 11 o’clock in the morning Her- 
schel island was sighted, this large island forming the western 
boundary of Mackenzie bay, or, as the ancient explorers often 
termed it, Mackenzie sea. At 1.30 in the afternoon we anchored 
off the southwest end of the island inside some grounded ice and 
off a long gravelly spit, thickly covered with heavy drift-wood 
from the Mackenzie river. 
The island is about 500 feet in height and has a rounded out- 
line, sloping gradually down from the center upon all sides. It 
shows the appearance of former glacial action, and appears to be 
an ancient moraine covered with a black vegetable mould. The 
vegetation was confined to grasses and small Arctic flowers, dimin- 
utive in size, delicate in color, and evidently shortlived. 
Soon after we anchored a party was sent on shore to erect a 
sign to mark our visit ; it consisted of a board with the name of 
the ship and the date of the visit in brass letters ; under the staff 
supporting it there are placed in a glass bottle the names of the offi- 
cers and men of the ship. The Beluga joined us soon after our 
arrival, and when the party from shore had returned we got 
under way to continue our look for the two whalers. Captain 
Brooks came on board the Thetis and shared my perch and look- 
out in the foretop, while his ship followed, in charge of his mate. 
As we reached the bluffs at the north end of the island we saw a 
noble expanse of open water stretching to the northward as far as 
the eye could reach. The ice was still heavy to the westward 
and northwestward, but to the north, beyond the light, scattering 
ice through which we were going, was clear sea, the waves leap- 
ing in the beautiful Arctic sunshine. 
