55 



shortly before ; ravens and gulls stayed there, revelling in the 

 meat, also several falcons were staying in the neighbourhood. 

 In Ørsteds Dal numerous traces were seen of musk-oxen which 

 shows that they are often walking here. 



On August 26'^ numerous musk-oxen were seen at the 

 bottom of Fleming Inlet from the ship ; they were walking on 

 the coast, and there being already one calf on board Ditlevsen 

 and I resolved to go ashore and try to catch one more. We 

 got with us one of the sailors, Peter, and went ashore on the 

 north-west side of the inlet. Along the beach was a flat sandy 

 fore shore on which several pieces of floating timber had been 

 thrown up. Fleming Inlet is continued in southwestern direc- 

 tion by three greater valleys, through which several rivers run, 

 forming deltas at their mouths, and carrying considerable multi- 

 tudes of sand into the inlet. The country is rising on both 

 sides of Fleming Inlet and the valleys to rather considerable 

 heights; the slopes were covered with looser layers of earth 

 where we were walking; they were richly covered with heather, 

 bleaberries . willow and some birch. The melt water made 

 its way hrough the looser layers of earth and had in several 

 places cut deep beds into the firmer substratum, lighter 

 and darker clay, quite red slates and sandstones; towards 

 the beach the melt water spread itself out to all sides, and 

 formed a somewhat swampy little covered strech of land (com- 

 pare fig. 15). At this time of the year one can however pass 

 it, only now and then we went through where the water was 

 still oozing down. We had scarcely got on shore when we 

 met with a little party of 4 animals, 2 bulls and 2 cows, 

 walking a little up the slope. There being no calf in the herd 

 we went on westward, and the party ran away in a great hurry 

 upwards and disappeared. Then we met with a young single 

 bull, but he ran away westward. We had not walked very 

 long, when we caught sight of a herd that approached us 

 grazing. Having observed before that the musk-ox is much 



