68 Dr. Edward L. Moss, 



It was from this latitude that our continuous search along the 

 coast-lines began. South of this point our visits to the shore on 

 both the outward and homeward voyages were of the most 

 flying character. Every movement of the ice had to be taken 

 advantage of, and our naturalists had often less than twenty 

 minutes to bundle together their specimens, Botanical, Zoological, 

 and Geological ; and yet abundant evidences of man were found 

 on every beach, till Lady Franklin Sound intersected the coast- 

 line. The Discovery wintered in a bay inside Bellot Island, 

 on the north shore of Lady Franklin Sound, and in the same 

 latitude as Cape Lupton, and the shores to the north instead of 

 being merely visited at intervals, were traversed over and over 

 again by our sledge parties. 



Lady Franklin Sound had not interrupted the onward passage 

 of the Eskimo. Tempted doubtless by the reindeer and musk-oxen, 

 on Bellot Island and the neighbouring main-land, their hunters 

 had crossed the sound, and several hearths, where splinters of 

 burnt drift wood and bits of scorched bone lay amongst the 

 blackened stones, where found on a long low spit of Bellot Island. 

 On a little rocky island within a stone's throw of the main-land 

 similar marks of summer hunting parties were discovered. For 

 seventeen miles to the north-eastward the shore still affords a 

 practicable path ; but at Cape Beechey, the steep cliffs of Bobeson 

 Channel rise abruptly from the tumbling stream of Polar ice, 

 that pours through the strait, under these cliffs and at the very 

 end of the practicable coast, Captain Feilden discovered a broken 

 sledge and a broken lamp. From this point northward our sledges 

 followed the coast for 100 miles to the north-east, and for 250 

 miles to the north-west and found no further trace. 



All the likely parts of the coast were traversed dozens of times 

 both before and after the disappearance of the snow, and no spot 

 where Eskimo had ever camped or cooked could possibly have 

 escaped us. I feel quite confident that all who have travelled 

 over the respective coasts will indorse the opinion already pub- 

 lished by Captain Feilden,* that "the men whose tracks we 

 followed to the 82° parallel never got round Cape Union, and 

 that it is impossible for any Eskimo to have rounded the northern 

 shores of Greenland." 



* " Naturalist," Aug. and Sept., 1877. 



