RISING OF THE LAND AROUND HUDSON BAY. 363 



hole. The heads of the channels, which now run in behind the present 

 peninsula from the opposite sides, are separated by a strip of low 

 ground, some 10 miles long, covered by bushes. Midway across this 

 strip the elevation is estimated to be about 15 feet above high tide. 

 The most prominent point on the coast between Moose Factory and 

 Fort Albany is now called "Cockispenny" by the whites, but the Cree 

 name is Ka-ka-ki-sippin-a-wayo Minis, or Island where the Crow-duck 

 (Cormorant) lays eggs. Since this island became connected with the 

 mainland, bushes have taken the place of the grasses and sedges which 

 first grew upon the low ground between them, and the former are con- 

 stantly acquiring a stronger growth. Many years ago the winter trail 

 of the coast passed over the neck of this peninsula, but now it has 

 become necessary to go outside of it, because the bushes have grown so 

 large that they catch the snow which, in sach situations, remains too 

 soft for dog teams and snow shoers. 



The salt marshes along the west coast of James Bay and also in the 

 vicinity of York Factory, which used to attract vast numbers of wild 

 geese and ducks, have been gradually drying up, much to the incon- 

 venience of the Hudson Bay Comi^any's people, who depended largely 

 upon them for food. 



The character of the lower portions of such rivers as the Moose, 

 Albany, and Attawapishkat shows a recession of the sea. This is 

 particularly observable in the lower 30 miles of the Moose, where very 

 long and narrow or ribbon-like islands run parallel to one another for 

 many miles. The process of their formation appears to have been a 

 constant drawing out of their lower extremities as the sea receded 

 from them, just as the lowest islands of the present day are growing. 



On the east main coast, where the land is comparatively high, the 

 grade of the rivers is rapid as they approach the bay, and in some of 

 them, as the Kastapoka and the Langlands, there are perpendicular 

 falls of about 100 feet almost directly into the sea. This condition 

 indicates recent elevation. 



One of the best evidences of the modern rising of the land is to be 

 found in the beach dwellings of the Eskimo, which may be seen at all 

 elevations up to about 70 feet. In summer these people generally camp 

 on the shore, and their favorite locations are at the mouths of small 

 streams into which the sea trout run at high tide. Here they construct 

 weirs of stones, which impound the fish when the tide retires. On Outer 

 Bigges Island, I have found these fish traps and the rings of stones 

 and other structures marking their old camping places up to a height 

 estimated at 70 feet. 



Among the historical evidences bearing upon this question since the 

 advent of the white man maybe mentioned the fact that in 1610 Henry 

 Hudson, the navigator, wintered in a bay full of islands on the east 

 coast south of latitude 53°. ISTone of the bays in this region would now 

 be possible for this purpose, showing that a considerable change in the 

 level of the sea has taken ]Dlace in less than three hundred years. 



